Rocket® COBOL-IT (formerly part of Micro Focus) (2025)

Rocket® COBOL (formerly part of Micro Focus)  

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Rocket® COBOL-IT (formerly part of Micro Focus) (1)

Engineered for enhancing performance, productivity and connectivity as well as embracing open source solutions.

Rocket® COBOL-IT (formerly part of Micro Focus) provides innovative and scalable solutions to enable enterprises to modernize their legacy COBOL applications. Founded in 2008, this combination of products, processes and partners enables companies to support evolving needs and embrace continuous modernization. A leader in the global COBOL community, COBOL-IT technology has migrated hundreds of customers, hundreds of thousands of users and hundreds of millions of lines of COBOL code.

COBOL-IT supports the wider COBOL community with a comprehensive offering, including a robust and compact product suite, a high-quality, professional compiler, and a proven migration process – all created to preserve the functionality of strategic COBOL applications. Endorsed by the globe’s most experienced migration partners, COBOL-IT has a strong track record in migrating mission-critical COBOL applications to open systems, and the Cloud. COBOL-IT customers modernize legacy COBOL applications, and utilize best-of-breed open source solutions, cloud computing, big data and cognitive technology to maximize the benefits of DevOps practices.

Partnership agreements between COBOL-IT and leading platform vendors, legacy modernization specialists, and software solutions in open systems ensure that moving to COBOL-IT can be accomplished rapidly, at low-risk, everywhere in the world.

COBOL-IT’s Process is designed to provide you with a roadmap of your move to COBOL-IT. You will understand what needs to be done, and how much you’ll spend and save.

  1. Application Assessment Survey: Describe your application using COBOL-IT’s Application Assessment Form. This allows COBOL-IT to identify complicating factors early, and ensure that all of the solutions you require are provided.
  2. Application Analysis: COBOL-IT will conduct an analysis of your entire application outline technical challenges and correlate recommended solutions with costs for your migration to COBOL-IT. Now, the ball is in your court!
  3. Clean Compile: COBOL-IT will work with your technical team on accommodating proprietary behaviors, and will produce a clean compile of your application using the COBOL-IT Compiler Suite. Now, you’re ready to begin your testing!
  4. Technical Services: Need support with modifications, testing, and migration of procedures? Check out our service packages below.

Services

  • Silver: Basic Support Services
    • Product Updates
    • COBOL-IT 3rd-party Certification Program
    • Private Online Portal
    • Technical Support- Web
  • Gold: Enterprise-class support for software development
    • All Silver Features
    • Technical Support- Phone
    • Consultative support from COBOL-IT specialists
  • Platinum Enterprise-class support for production
    • All Gold Features
    • Rapid response 24 x 7
    • Emergency hot fixes & patch distribution
    • Extended End-of-Life support

Rocket® COBOL-IT Compiler Suite Enterprise Edition (formerly a Micro Focus® product)

The Rocket® COBOL-IT Compiler Suite Enterprise Edition (formerly a Micro Focus® product) provides high-performance and a very high level of compatibility with Micro Focus and IBM COBOL compilers, ensuring a rapid transition with minimal cost and minimal risk. Our goal is to provide you with a transition transparent to your users, with equal or better performance and interoperability with all of the elements in your Enterprise Solution Stack!

An Enterprise COBOL Compiler Suite that is highly adapted to the needs of Enterprises with Mission Critical COBOL components in their Enterprise Solution Stack.

  • Enables you to compile existing Enterprise COBOL programs and run the compiled objects in all Open Systems Unix®, Linux®, and Windows® platforms.
  • Provides interoperability with all of the core elements of your Enterprise Solution Stack, including databases, transactional monitors, data manipulation tools, indexed file systems and third-party tools.
  • Provides high compatibility with your existing COBOL Compiler, ensuring a rapid transition with minimal cost and minimal risk.

The COBOL-IT Compiler Suite

Port List

The COBOL-IT Port List contains a comprehensive list of the Ports available for the COBOL-IT Compiler Suite Enterprise Edition.

The COBOL-IT Compiler Suite

A Transparent Transition

  • ANSI-85 COBOL Compliance.
  • High Compatibility with IBM and Rocket Software COBOL.
  • Support for IBM and Rocket Software COBOL compiler flags and compiler directives.
  • Highly configurable to support proprietary behaviors.
  • External sort module CitSORT highly compatible with DFSORT and MFSORT.
  • Distributed on all major Windows, Linux and UNIX platforms.

The COBOL-IT Compiler Suite

Equal or Better Performance

  • Compiler Flags allow you to identify and eliminate performance bottlenecks.
  • COBOL-IT takes advantage of performance-oriented features of the “C” compiler.
  • High degree of tuning available for arithmetic computations, PERFORM tests, CALL statements, initializations of large tables, and more.
  • High-performance external sort module.

The COBOL-IT Compiler Suite

Interoperability with the other elements of your Enterprise Solution Stack

  • Certified with industry-leading database, transactional monitors, data manipulation tools, indexed file systems and third-party tools.
  • Certifications include Oracle Database, Oracle Tuxedo, Syncsort.
  • EXTFH-compliant for indexed, relative, and sequential file handling.

The COBOL-IT Compiler Suite

Minimizing Risks

  • A feature rich compiler tuned to provide the very highest level of compatibility with Rocket Software and IBM COBOL compilers.

The COBOL-IT Compiler Suite

Minimizing Costs

  • A high-performance runtime tuned to ensure that proprietary behaviors can be matched, ensuring a transparent transition.

Additional features for COBOL-IT Compiler Suite

Availability on all Open System Platforms

Easy to transition from any COBOL compiler on any system.

Open Source Core Technology

Allows COBOL-IT to provide the highest value possible with a COBOL compiler that satisfies your requirements.

Subscription-based Pricing

Provides Customers with a flat rate that secures the services they need when they need them. Customers avoid expensive and sometimes unpredictable new license costs.

Highly optimizable object code

COBOL-IT objects are created with the host machine’s “C” compiler. All the optimization capabilities of the “C” compiler are available to the COBOL programmer. When performance is critical, COBOL-IT fast performance can often be made even faster.

Compiler configuration file

Eases the transition of applications developed using other COBOL compilers, which may contain a lot of compiler flags and directives. COBOL-IT technicians and certified COBOL-IT partners can help you navigate through these issues and greatly shorten your transition time, saving you a lot of money.

Compatibility with EXTFH and EXTSM

EXTFH compatibility provides the COBOL-IT Enterprise Runtime System connectivity to any ISAM file system that is also EXTFH-compatible. EXTSM compatibility provides accessibility to any external data manipulation module that is EXTSM compatible.

Database connectivity

COBOL-IT allows you to connect to the latest releases of Oracle databases using the Oracle Pro*COBOL pre-compiler. COBOL-IT’s CitSQL Family of Pre-compilers provide connectivity to the latest releases of Oracle MySQL, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server databases.

High-Performance External SORT Utility

CitSORT is a very high performance external data manipulation / sort utility which uses syntax compatible with DFSORT, MFSORT and AcuSort. It provides a straightforward plug-and-play replacement for these other utilities in most cases.

ICU Code-page Support

Opens the widest range of code-pages to users of COBOL-IT to ensure that they will be able to develop their applications for users around the globe.

EBCDIC Character Set Handling

Provides a high-value capability for Mainframe users allowing them to perform batch processing in a Mainframe/Unix share folder. COBOL-IT’s support for the EBCDIC character set allows for the COBOL-IT compiler/runtime to be used and save expensive mainframe cycles.

Profiler

Records where the runtime is spending time, so that performance bottlenecks can be easily identified and removed.

Debugging Tools

The debugger engine, cobcdb, is documented and provides the ability to attach to a running process, set conditional breakpoints, perform stepping operations, modify and display variable values in hex or ASCII format, monitor variables, reproduce the state of programs loaded in memory at the time of an abend and more.

Rocket® COBOL-IT Developer Studio (formerly a Micro Focus® product)

The Rocket® COBOL-IT Developer Studio (formerly a Micro Focus® product) is an Eclipse-based development environment that allows you to develop, debug and maintain your COBOL applications in a highly-configurable project-oriented environment.

Our goal is to provide you with an Eclipse-based tool for Development and Debugging on all of the platforms on which the COBOL-IT Compiler Suite Enterprise Edition is available.

An Eclipse-based development environment that integrates the COBOL-IT Compiler, Runtime and Debugger and that can be operated on a Local or Remote Host.

  • The COBOL-IT Debugger provides the ability to step, or run through source, manage breakpoints, monitor variables, and view variable values in hex or ASCII format.
  • Use the COBOL-IT Runtime and Debugger installed on the remote machine to run your application, and to run your programs in debug mode.
  • In the Eclipse framework, the COBOL-IT Developer Studio provides the ability to manage projects on all the Windows/Linux/UNIX platforms on which COBOL-IT Compiler Suite is available.

The COBOL-IT Developer Studio

An Eclipse-based development environment

  • Eclipse is the most widely-used development environment framework and benefits from a mature toolset, a well-developed knowledge base and broad portability.
  • In the Eclipse framework, the COBOL-IT Developer Studio provides the ablity to manage projects on all the Windows/Linux/UNIX platforms on which COBOL-IT Compiler Suite is available.
  • Project can be built, run, and run in debug on both local machines, and remote host machines.

The COBOL-IT Developer Studio

A COBOL-aware Code Editor

  • The COBOL-IT Code Editor will reduce the number of errors you make while coding and reduce the time it takes to correct them.
  • The COBOL-IT Code Editor updates an Outline View of your code in real time, making it very easy to navigate within large source files.
  • The COBOL-IT Code Editor provides configurable hot keys, pre-defined code fragments easily inserted into your code, tab settings, line numbers, colorization and capitalization of reserved words, support for ANSI and Terminal source formats and more.

The COBOL-IT Developer Studio

A Powerful Debugger

  • The COBOL-IT Debugger provides the ability to step, or run through source, manage breakpoins, monitor variables, and view variable values in hex or ASCII format.
  • The COBOL-IT Debugger can be configured to run with specific environment variables.
  • When using a pre-compiler, the COBOL-IT Debugger may configured to debug original source code, or source code generated by the pre-compiler.
  • The COBOL-IT Debugger can be set to attach to a running process, and detached from the running process when debugging is complete.

The COBOL-IT Developer

Studio A feature-rich, highly configurable Eclipse-based environment

  • Benefit from the broad portability, and ability to integrate the widest range of third-party tools into your Eclipse-based development environment.

The COBOL-IT Developer Studio

Develop, debug and maintain your application on local and remote hosts

  • Use the Developer Studio to compile, run, and run in debug on any machine on which you have the COBOL-IT Compiler Suite installed.

Additional features for COBOL-IT Developer Studio

Eclipse-based Development Environment

COBOL-IT Developer Studio is certified on Linux and Microsoft Windows platforms for working on projects located on remote machines.

Fully featured for the COBOL Developer

The COBOL-IT Developer Studio includes the Developer Studio Perspective for work on local projects, a Remote System Explorer Perspective for work on remote hosts, and a Debugger Perspective for feature-rich debugging. The Developer Studio hosts powerful development tools, including a Data Displayer, Code Coverage, real-time Profiling, and built-in support for the Mylyn Task Manager and Git Source Code Control System.

Highly configurable work environment

Configure your workspace, populate your projects, set compiler flags and environment variables, and then build and run the programs in your application.

COBOL-aware Code Editor

Create programming templates, program hot-keys, colorize reserved words. Easily identify and correct compiler errors.

Integrate source and data stored in a distributed computing environment

Operates with files and folders on local or remote host machines.

Remote Systems Perspective

Allows you to create COBOL Workspaces, Projects, and Programs on remote host machines, use the local compiler, runtime and debugger, access code coverage, profiling and data displayer utilities, and interface with the Mylyn Task Manager and RSEGit Source Code Control System.

Access External Utilities

Maximizes the flexibility and adaptability of the development environment for the specific needs of the user.

Powerful string search functions

Allows the user to quickly identify searched strings, and if necessary, modify source code.

Outline View automatically generated from source code

Provides clickable entry points to specific points in the program, increasing the efficiency with which the programmer can navigate large source files.

Compiler Console view of the output from a Build

Provides a familiar view on the workings of the compiler.

Debugger support for EBCDIC-encoded programs

Enhances debugging capabilities during transition from the mainframe.

Debugger support for UTF-8 protocol

Provides the ablity to display values in Hex and in UTF-8 in the Variable and Monitor windows of the Debugger Perspective.

Debugger support for conditional breakpoints

Allows for breakpoints to be executed only when described conditions are met.

Support for third-party source code control systems

Improves Development capabilities by providing interfaces for configuring source code control commands.

Debug using COBOL debugger or “C” debugger

Attach a “C” debugger and step through “C” source code, and return to the COBOL debugger to step through COBOL code in the same debugging session.

Data Displayer Perspective for File Editing

Open any indexed, relative, binary sequential or line sequential file in the Data Displayer in either Read-Only or Read-Write mode. Modify data in either ASCII or hex format.

Code Coverage

Run your program with a Code Coverage Configuration, and collect information on lines of code executed by your application during a run cycle.

Profiler

Captures Memory and CPU usage for display in real time, and in summary form.

Git Perspective

Provides access to full range of Git functionality. In addition to source code control, Git provides mechanisms to drive DevOps delivery with triggers for test automation servers like Jenkins.

MyLyn Task Manager

Provides access to Mylyn, the task and application lifecycle management (ALM) framework for Eclipse.

COBOL-IT Web Services Perspective

Highly adaptable Web Services solution which allows the Developer to map COBOL functions to POST, GET, PUT and DELETE methods, and generate API strings and bridge programs for accessing those functions as Web Services.

Learning & Documentation Resources

COBOL-IT Web Services Apache Solution

Sample Project for demonstrating the Wildfly solution. Includes source file, and sample files for test, which include html files, and script files. Also includes spring-resteasy.war which is designed for the specific sample. Also, empty folders for storing the API strings and bridge program templates generated. Includes Powerpoint with detailed instructions. Requires Developer Studio version 2.0.4 or greater, with COBOL-IT Web Services Plug-In. Requires that Wildfly be installed and running. Linux only.

Download Zip file

COBOL-IT Web Services Wildfly Solution

Sample Project for demonstrating the Wildfly solution. Includes source file, and sample files for test, which include html files, and script files. Also includes spring-resteasy.war which is designed for the specific sample. Also, empty folders for storing the API strings and bridge program templates generated. Includes Powerpoint with detailed instructions. Requires Developer Studio version 2.0.4 or greater, with COBOL-IT Web Services Plug-In. Requires that Wildfly be installed and running. Linux only.

Download Zip file

COBOL-IT eLearning Videos

Learning COBOL is essential for maintaining and modernizing the countless legacy systems that still power critical operations and industries.

Ask an expert
Rocket® COBOL-IT (formerly part of Micro Focus) (2025)

FAQs

What is the difference between COBOL and Microfocus COBOL? ›

Micro Focus's COBOL has evolved and today it differs significantly from the COBOL language of 1959, embracing object-orientation and enabling you to write code that takes full advantage of new operating systems and platforms such as Microsoft's . NET framework, . NET Core, and the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

What is micro focus COBOL? ›

The Micro Focus COBOL compiler and runtime system provides universal platform coverage enabling COBOL applications to be deployed across a range of distributed systems, ensuring compatibility and consistent behavior across different platforms.

What is the history of Micro Focus COBOL? ›

History. Micro Focus was founded by Brian Reynolds in Notting Hill in 1976. In 1981, it became the first company to win the Queen's Award for Industry purely for developing a software product. The product was CIS COBOL, a standard-compliant COBOL implementation for microcomputers.

What is the best COBOL compiler for Windows 10? ›

NetCOBOL for Windows delivers a robust and versatile COBOL compiler designed specifically for the Windows platform, eliminating the need for COBOL runtime fees. This enables more efficient development and deployment of COBOL applications, offering both cost savings and enhanced performance.

Why is COBOL not used anymore? ›

COBOL is a language that was very popular and future proof in the 1970's and 1980, but that has become a liability due to lack of developers. The demise of COBOL has therefor been predicted for decades (since the mid 1990's), but somehow the language is still in use.

Is COBOL still used or is it still worth learning? ›

COBOL was one of the pioneering programming languages in business, and it's the basis for thousands of computer systems still in use today. In fact, most banks and government agencies, among other companies, still work with this system.

Is COBOL a dead language? ›

COBOL, a programming language developed in the 1950s, is often referred to as a dead language. Despite being considered outdated by some, COBOL continues to play a crucial role in many legacy systems.

Is Micro Focus COBOL free? ›

Whether you are new to COBOL or a veteran, our free, one-year, student developer license will help you build new skills for a rewarding career. Build skills in COBOL without the need to buy a license.

What is the new name for Micro Focus? ›

Micro Focus is now OpenText.

Does Micro Focus still exist? ›

In 2023, OpenText™ acquired Micro Focus™, a global software leader in enterprise digital transformation since 1976.

Who bought Micro Focus? ›

OpenText has completed the acquisition of Micro Focus and I am delighted to welcome customers, partners and employees to OpenText.

What is Micro Focus used for? ›

Micro Focus StarTeam delivers changes across multiple ALM repositories and tools as the single source of truth. It's an enterprise change management system, serving both centralized and geographically distributed development teams, helping them achieve their highest level of software delivery.

Do any companies still use COBOL? ›

Governments and companies with large amounts of data and numerous transactions rely on COBOL today. It does business processing very well. Processes like inventory, payroll, insurance, banking, and any processing of dollars and cents are exactly what COBOL is built to do.

What is replacing COBOL? ›

Some companies choose to convert the COBOL code to more modern programming languages, such as Python, Java, or Cobalt. But translating a procedural language such as COBOL, to an object-oriented language such as Python, Java, or Cobalt presents its own challenge.

Is COBOL still in demand? ›

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the job outlook for computer programmers is declining, but COBOL programmers are still in demand by companies that use COBOL for their daily operations, such as government agencies, banks, and other business organizations.

What is Microfocus mainframe? ›

Micro Focus Enterprise powers the replatforming pattern within AWS Mainframe Modernization service. Replatforming mainframe applications allows preserving application assets with minimal changes while modernizing the infrastructure and processes for enhancing agility and elasticity.

What is Microfocus COBOL code in Visual Studio? ›

COBOL Source editing for Visual Studio Code. This unofficial extension provides syntax highlighting for Micro Focus™ based COBOL languages, as well as syntax highlighting for other related languages/file formats such JCL, PL/I and Micro Focus directive files and Micro Focus Unit Test Reports.

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