*** Updated 18th of August 2022 with the availability of Enterprise Server and Enterprise Test Server on the marketplace ***

As organizations around the world continue to leverage their journey to cloud, Micro Focus continue to support this journey. Two years ago, we announced the availability of our development and analysis tools on Azure.

In December 2021 , Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced their new AWS Mainframe Modernization service, powered by Micro Focus technology.

A few months ago, we published our Micro Focus Enterprise Server blueprint for Google Cloud which outlines and demonstrates how customers can deploy a scalable and highly available environment for mainframe applications on the Google Cloud. And today, we are happy to announce that our tools are now also available on the GCP marketplace.

The GCP marketplace allows you to provision cloud virtual machines quickly and securely, pre-installed with our software. The whole process takes a few minutes, and you are ready to explore, evaluate and try out our technology.

Each product page in GCP includes helpful links and an automated way for you to get a 30-day trial license to our software.

Included products are:

Visual COBOL for Eclipse 8.0 on Red Hat Linux – https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/microfocus-amcmp-public/visual-cobol-developer-for-eclipse

COBOL Analyzer 8.0 on Windows – https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/microfocus-amcmp-public/cobol-analyzer

Enterprise Developer for Eclipse 8.0 on Windows – https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/microfocus-amcmp-public/enterprise-developer-for-eclipse

Enterprise Analyzer 8.0 on Windows – https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/microfocus-amcmp-public/enterprise-analyzer

New! Enterprise Server 8.0 on Red Hat Linux – https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/microfocus-amcmp-public/enterprise-server

New! Enterprise Test Server 8.0 on Windows – https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/microfocus-amcmp-public/enterprise-test-server

But watch this space as additional products and offers are on their way! We, at Micro Focus are making every effort to make sure our COBOL and mainframe customers are always future and cloud ready.

In the following sections, I’ll guide you on how to get started with our products on GCP.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please visit our community sites and we’ll be happy to help, and as always feel free to connect with me directly via email or LinkedIn

Accessing the GCP marketplace

Using your Google account details, navigate to https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace and search for the product you would like to deploy.

Alternatively, you can use the direct links above.

If you don’t have an account, you can read about Google free trials here: https://cloud.google.com/free

Getting your trial license

In every one of our product pages, you’ll find a link to request a license:

Follow the link and fill in the form or sign in if you already have a Micro Focus account.

You’ll get an email with a link to access you license key. When you follow the link, you’ll get to the Micro Focus Entitlement page:

Under the Action column of the product you requested, click on Activate

Choose the Target Name and click Next

Confirm by clicking Submit

Your license file will be downloaded and sent to you via email. The extension of the file will be .xml .

Deploy the product on GCP

On the GCP product page, click Launch

Choose the machine type or leave the defaults.

Accept the terms

Click Deploy

This will start the deployment process. It should only take a few minutes:

Access the GCP machine (Windows Instances)

On the Google Cloud Console, go to Compute Engine->VM Instances.

Find the machine on the list:

Under the Connect column, expand, and select Set Windows password

Click Set and copy the password to the clipboard

Expand again and select Download the RDP file

Open the RDP file and use the password from your clipboard.

You are now connected to the machine!

Apply the license (Windows Machines)

Copy the license xml file to the machine. You can Copy & Paste it from your local machine.

Inside the machine, open Micro Focus License Administration

Switch to the Install tab and browse to the license file.

Click on Install Licenses

Your software is now licensed to use for your trial!

What’s next?

Run the products, look at the documentation and tutorials that are available and feel free to use our community site to raise questions and start discussions.

In order to delete the machine, go to Compute Engine->VM Instances in GCP console, choose the machine and select Delete

Appendix – Using VNC to remotely connect to the Visual COBOL machine on Red Hat Linux (Needed for Eclipse usage)

Standard SSH connections can be made just like any other Linux machine, see more details here: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/connecting-to-instance

In order to use Visual COBOL for Eclipse, we have configured a VNC server on the machine.

For accessing the machine using a VNC client, you need to setup an SSH tunnel. Here’s how you do that:

After you deployed the machine, go to Compute Engine->VM Instances in GCP console

Click on the machine and edit the machine details

Open Powershell and generate a key: ssh-keygen -t rsa -f <path_to_key eg:d:\temp\key> -C demouser -b 2048

You can use a passphrase if you wish.

This will generate 2 files, the private and the public keys.

Scroll down the Google Console to the SSH Keys section and click ADD ITEM

Paste the .pub file content into the field. It should start with ssh-rsa and end with demouser.

Click Save

Go back to VM instances

Copy the external IP address of the machine

Back on the Powershell console, start the SSH tunnel: ssh -i <path_to_private_key eg. .\gcpkey > -v -C -L 5900:localhost:5900 demouser@<ip address eg. 35.229.21.226>

Write yes if asked to confirm and the passphrase if you defined one.

SSH tunnel should be created and you should have an open console to the machine.

Download a VNC client (such as TightVNC or OpenVNC) and connect to localhost::5900.

Note: Depending on your VNC client settings, you might get this or a similar warning:

In fact, the data exchange is encrypted as you are communicating with the remote machine using the SSH tunnel.

You’ll be asked for a password, enter: vncpassword

You can change the password by using the vncpasswd command on the Linux machine.

Download the license file to the machine. You can also Copy & Paste the file content into a new file on the machine using gedit or the built in text editor.

Open Micro Focus Visual COBOL for Eclipse

Click Launch

You’ll be asked for a license, browse to the license file and open it.

Click Yes

You are ready to go!

Tip: You can change the screen resolution for better usability by navigating to: Applications->System Tools->Settings->Devices->Resolution