IBM COBOL for Linux® on x86 is a productive and powerful development environment for building and modernizing COBOL applications. It includes an optimizing COBOL compiler, a COBOL runtime library, and a debugger that lets you visually debug programs from your workstation.
COBOL for Linux on x86 is also designed to support your journey to cloud. Strategically deploy business-critical applications written in COBOL to a hybrid cloud environment or best-fit platforms that include IBM Z® (IBM z/OS®), IBM Power® systems (AIX®), and x86 (Linux) platforms.
It is available standalone, or as part of IBM CICS TX to run CICS COBOL applications in Red Hat® OpenShift® environments.
Updates to features for COBOL for Linux on x86
This solution ships as part of IBM CICS TX and supports Docker and Kubernetes; IBM CICS TX Advanced is Red Hat OpenShift certified.
Interoperates with IBM CICS TX, IBM TXSeries® for Multiplatforms and IBM Db2® Advanced Enterprise Server Edition for Linux, UNIX® and Windows™ for the Linux on x86 environment.
Includes IBM Debug for Linux on x86 to support debugging of COBOL and CICS applications. This makes your development work more efficient.
COBOL for Linux can now run on 64-bit Linux distros. This provides access to a larger address space for code and application data, more efficient use of memory layout, and improved performance.
Incremental build support is provided through the -M compiler option. It improves developer productivity by allowing you to do iterative, incremental builds, while also ensuring that programs are built with the latest version of any copybooks that you use.
As a document database used to build highly available and scalable internet applications, MongoDB makes it easy for you to store structured or unstructured data. Support for MongoDB as a VSAM data store is provided by specifying a file system type of MONGO in COBOL applications.
Interoperates with IBM CICS TX, IBM TXSeries for Multiplatforms and IBM Db2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows to support the development of COBOL programs to run in a CICS or Db2 environment.
Supports developing COBOL programs that work with various national languages and directly processing Unicode data.
Allows COBOL applications to parse and generate XML documents.
The source conversion utility (scu) is a stand-alone Linux® program that aids in migrating COBOL applications developed with non-IBM COBOL compilers to COBOL for Linux on x86.
Provides compiler options and COBOL language features that are compatible with Enterprise COBOL for z/OS and AIX to allow strategic deployment of business-critical applications written in COBOL to best-fit platforms or a hybrid cloud environment.
Provides comprehensive file system support to work with record-oriented files that have sequential, relative, indexed, or line-sequential organization.
A generation data group (GDG) is a chronological collection of related files. This feature simulates generation data groups (GDGs) to simplify the processing of multiple versions of related data and provide better compatibility with Enterprise COBOL for z/OS.
Supports inter-language communication between COBOL and C/C++. You can call functions written in C/C++ from COBOL programs and can call COBOL programs from C/C++ functions.
Offers an extended source format that lets source text vary in length up to 252 bytes per line.
Try COBOL for Linux on x86 as a standalone trial, or as part of CICS TX to run CICS COBOL applications in Red Hat OpenShift environments.
Accelerate COBOL application modernization. Learn how to Build COBOL applications for Linux x86 systems, develop COBOL programs to run in a CICS or Db2 environment and Enable COBOL programs to parse and generate XML messages.
Experience the distributed CICS® runtime which can host CICS COBOL applications in a containerized Linux® environment in a stand-alone mode or work in a hybrid mode along with CICS Transaction Server.
A no-charge trial for non-production use for 60 days. Try COBOL for Linux on x86 on its own or together with CICS TX.
For on-premises deployments of COBOL applications.
For first cloud deployments of distributed COBOL/CICS applications. COBOL for Linux on x86 is included.
For balancing enterprise grade COBOL/CICS application investment across on-prem (z/OS) applications and cloud environments. COBOL for Linux on x86 is included.
Purpose
Evaluation
Development and deployment
Development and deployment
Development and deployment
Charge metric
No charge
VPC with a perpetual license
VPC with a monthly license
VPC with monthly or perpetual
Target platform to deploy applications
On-premises
On-premises
Cloud or on-premises
Cloud or on-premises
Online transactions
Includes COBOL compiler
Aplication server
Vertical scaling/up to 5 apps
Unlimited vertical scaling
Namespace
5 pods per namespace
Unlimited pods per namespace
Supports containerization
Load balancing
Ensure that your system meets all prerequisites before installing the product.
Use any of the following operating systems on compatible x86-64 servers to run COBOL for Linux on x86 1.2 and its generated object programs:
COBOL for Linux on x86 1.2 and its generated object programs run on any x86-64 processor that is supported by your operating system distribution. There are other requirements we recommended you follow.
For the required programs, determine which GNU package is required to run the compiler on your operating system. To use COBOL for Linux on x86 1.2 with optional programs such as Db2®, CICS®, and MongoDB, additional products are required.
Use the latest z/Architecture to maximize hardware utilization, reduce CPU usage and improve the performance of critical applications.
Maximize hardware, optimize performance and improve developer productivity with an environment built for business-critical applications on IBM Power Systems.
Improve the performance of already-compiled COBOL program modules without recompiling, source code migration or performance tuning.
A comprehensive, single package of a transactional runtime with a COBOL compiler enabled on Red Hat OpenShift.
Explore distributed transaction processing middleware that supports C, C++, COBOL, Java and PL/I applications in data centers.
Access a Db2 database, which is optimized to deliver industry-leading performance across multiple workloads.