Last month, Open Text announced the next release of its flagship solution for COBOL and Mainframe modernization – Visual COBOL 9.0 and Enterprise Suite 9.0. However, if you’ve had a busy summer, it’s possible you may have missed that news and our product launch webinar.  Ed Airey, Product Marketing Director at Open Text shares some of the highlights from this event and how you can catch up on the latest news surrounding application modernization.

9.0 enables new modernization opportunity.

Modernizing COBOL and mainframe application s is now mainstream. For many IT leaders, these core business systems must be modernized to meet new business requirements and customer expectations. The question becomes ‘how’ to go about that process and where to begin.  The latest release of Micro Focus Visual COBOL and Micro Focus Enterprise Suite technology will support your mission to modernize enterprise applications. 

Key 9.0 release highlights include:

• New video based “Micro Focus COBOL Fundamentals” course freely available at com. Learn COBOL in 1 day!
• New COBOL language syntax which helps simplify maintenance tasks, enables easier integration with Java and helps make COBOL more accessible to the next generation of developers.
• New unit testing tools for mainframe applications enabling adoption of Agile and DevOps practices. 
• New Enterprise Analyzer Technical Preview now available on Linux and ready for cloud deployments.
• New enhancements to Enterprise Server security, administration, operation, and application diagnostics support.
• Feature development across all developer toolsets including Visual Studio Code, providing customers with the very best experience for enterprise application development.
• Certification and testing across all major platforms and support for new Linux distributions, extending customer choice on- and off-cloud. 

If you’re interested in learning more about 9.0 and how to take advantage of this latest modernization technology, watch the full replay of the 9.0 product launch webinar.

Community Q&A

For those that did attend July’s launch event, I do want to briefly address a few questions posed to our panel.

<Question> What is the target platform for Allianz ABS? Microsoft Azure?

<Open Text> As discussed on our launch webinar, this customer has moved to a Linux platform, but is also exploring multiple cloud options. Now that their applications are highly portable, they can move to one or more clouds. It may also be of interest that Allianz spoke in more detail at 2018 AWS global Partner Summit. However, Allianz is also partnering with Microsoft as per this more recent announcement.

<Question> Are you planning GenAI extension to the COBOL and PL/I editor?

<Open Text> Great question.  We’re always working to bring new innovation to our COBOL developers.

Watch this space for more information.

<Question> How do I get started with the new COBOL Courseware offered as part of 9.0?

<Open Text> Getting started with the new Micro Focus COBOL Fundamentals courseware is easy.  First, visit COBOL.com and Register for a new account on our education platform.  Once registered, simply click the link on the COBOL.com to ‘Take the Course’ Once you login you’ll be taken to the courseware material and away you go.  Complete the COBOL courseware, you’ll earn a digital certification that you can proudly promote on your favorite social media platform.

Wrap-up

These were great questions from our COBOL and mainframe community.  We look forward to addressing others as they are posted on our Visual COBOL community and Enterprise Suite community forums. So, if you’re working with COBOL or mainframe applications and are curious what’s new?  Perhaps planning a move up to the latest Open Text technology? Or planning to modernize core business applications, you’ll want to take a closer look at this latest release.  Explore all that is new in Visual COBOL 9.0 and Enterprise Suite 9.0.  Watch the 9.0 launch video.

Watch Visual COBOL and Enterprise Suite 9.0 Launch h Reply.