Additional Software Requirements for Visual COBOL Development Hub

To ensure full functionality for some Visual COBOL features, you might be required to obtain and install additional third-party software in addition to the prerequisite software installed automatically by the Visual COBOL setup file. The following information specifies the third-party software required for each feature.

Application server support for JVM COBOL

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The following application servers are supported using the following JDKs:

Application Server JDK version Containers support version
Tomcat 7.0.X 1.7 Servlets 2.5
JBoss EAP 6.4 1.7, 1.8 Servlets 2.5
WebLogic 12.1.1 1.7 Servlets 2.5
WebLogic 12.2.1 1.8 Servlets 2.5
WebSphere 8.5 1.7 Servlets 2.5
WebSphere 9.0 1.8 Servlets 2.5
Note:
  • On AIX and zLinux, you need to have IBM's JDK. The earliest supported release of IBM's JDK 1.7 is 7.0 Service Refresh 8. If you install IBM's JDK 8, on AIX you must install its latest fix - JDK 8 SR5 FP16. You can get IBM's AIX JDK from IBM's Web site.
  • On HP-UX, you need to have HP-UX JDK. The earliest supported release of HP-UX JDL 1.7 is Java 7.0.11. You can get the HP-UX Java JDK from HP's Web site.
  • On Solaris platforms (both SPARC and Intel) only the 64-bit version of Java 8 is supported.
  • On all other platforms, you need Oracle's JDK. The earliest supported release of Oracle's JDK 1.7 is 1.7.027. You can download Oracle's JDK from Oracle's Web site.

Application server JCA support for Enterprise Server

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Restriction: This feature applies only when the Enterprise Server feature is enabled.

Java EE 7, including support for EJB 3.2 and Java Connector Architecture 1.7, is supported for the deployment of EJBs.

The following Java application servers are supported using the following JDKs:

Application Servers JDK (vendor) Java EE COBOL RA
JBoss EAP 7.1.4 1.8 (Oracle)

1.8 (AdoptOpenJDK)1

7 X
Oracle WebLogic 12.2.1 1.8 (Oracle) 7 X
IBM WebSphere 9.0 1.8 (IBM) 7 X
Tomcat 9.0.x2 1.8 (AdoptOpenJDK)
1JBoss EAP 7.1.4 restricts support of AdoptOpenJDK to Red Hat Enterprise Linux platforms. For more information, see the Red Hat Web site for supported configurations.

2Apache Tomcat is an HTTP server and servlet container supporting Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages (JSP). Micro Focus Tomcat non-transactional support includes servlet generation with J2SE Beans; no transactional support is provided. Tomcat does not support the use of Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) or resource adapters (RAs).

Please consult your Application Server documentation to determine which JDK you should use. The JDK is used to:

  • Start the Application Server
  • Compile EJBs and Servlets generated by the Interface Mapping Toolkit or the imtkmake command

After installing the JDK, you need to set up your Java environment.

The availability of COBOL resource adapters for these Application Servers differs between UNIX platforms. The following table indicates where support is available for each platform:

Feature/Platform JBoss EAP 7.1.4 WebSphere 9.0 WebLogic 12.2.1 Tomcat 9.0.x1
AIX 7.1 on RS6000 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit
HP/UX 11.31 on Intel IA64 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit
Red Hat EL 6.2 on IBM390 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit
Red Hat EL 6.1 on x86-64 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit
Solaris 11.3 on AMD Opteron 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit
Solaris 11.3 on SPARC 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit
SUSE SLES 12 SP2 on IBM390 64-bit2 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit
SUSE SLES 12 SP2 on AMD x86-64 64-bit2 64-bit 64-bit 64-bit
SUSE SLES12 on PowerLinux LE 64-bit
1Apache Tomcat is an HTTP server and servlet container supporting Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages (JSP). Micro Focus Tomcat non-transactional support includes servlet generation with J2SE Beans; no transactional support is provided. Tomcat does not support the use of Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) or resource adapters (RAs).

2JBoss EAP 7.1.4 not listed as tested by RedHat on this platform.

Java Development Kit (JDK)

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For COBOL JVM code and Java Interoperability, Java 8 (32 or 64-bit versions), and Java 11 (64-bit version only) are supported. Java 8 (64-bit) is required to run the Eclipse IDE. The minimum recommended version is AdoptOpenJDK's OpenJDK 8 (u202) with Hotspot, which the Windows product installs automatically. Alternatively, you can download AdoptOpenJDK's OpenJDK 8 with Hotspot from AdoptOpenJDK's Web site and unpack the archive anywhere on your machine.
Note: Eclipse does not run using Java 11.

Database Access

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Before you can use Visual COBOL to develop and deploy SQL applications that use COBSQL, DB2 ECM, or OpenESQL, ensure any third-party software prerequisites are installed and the environment is set properly.

Database Access - COBSQL (Pro*COBOL)

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Note: COBSQL (Pro*COBOL) is supported for native COBOL only.
Availability
Feature/Platform 32-bit 64-bit
x86-64 running Red Hat Linux X X
x86-64 running SUSE Linux X X
IBM System p running AIX X X
IBM System z running Red Hat Linux X X
IBM System z running SUSE Linux X X
Itanium running HP-UX X X
x86-64 running Solaris X X
SPARC running Solaris X X
XA Switch Module
When the Enterprise Server feature is enabled, the Oracle XA switch module is provided for COBSQL (Pro*COBOL), and is available on the same platforms as are indicated in the Availability section above.
Certification of RDBMS Precompilers for Native COBOL
Certification of RDBMS precompilers with Micro Focus products is the responsibility of the RDBMS vendor, rather than Micro Focus. Certification information can be found within the relevant Oracle documentation. If you have an Oracle MetaLink account (http://metalink.oracle.com), document # 43208.1 provides details of all language compilers certified by Oracle for use with their precompilers.
Preprocessors
COBSQL supports the following database preprocessors:
  • Oracle Pro*COBOL Version 12.2 and 18c database preprocessors
  • Sybase Open Client Embedded SQL/COBOL Version 11.1 or later
  • Informix Embedded SQL/COBOL Version 7.3 or later
Compiling
On x86 and x86-64 platforms, when compiling with COBSQL for use with Oracle, do not use the COBSQL directive option NOMAKESYN, since this directive results in COMP host variables, and on Intel platforms these are incompatible with the native byte order expected by Oracle.
Executing
On HP-UX, to execute an application precompiled using Pro*COBOL (or COBSQL) after you have created a callable shared object of Oracle DBMS routines, you need set an environment variable, LD_PRELOAD, to point to the Oracle client callable shared object, for example: 
LD_PRELOAD=$ORACLE_HOME/libdir/libclntsh.so       
export LD_PRELOAD
where libdir is:
  • lib32 for 32-bit environments
  • lib for 64-bit environments.

A script is available that creates an executable run-time system or a callable shared object containing Oracle support (applies to UNIX environments only). You can find the script in the Micro Focus Knowledge Base article titled Building and executing Pro*COBOL applications on UNIX.

Testing
For this version, COBSQL was tested with Oracle 12.2 and 18c.

Database Access - DB2 ECM

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Note: DB2 ECM is supported for native COBOL only.
Availability
Feature/Platform 32-bit 64-bit
x86-64 running Red Hat Linux X X
x86-64 running SUSE Linux X X
IBM System p running AIX X X
IBM System z running Red Hat Linux X X
IBM System z running SUSE Linux X X
Itanium running HP-UX X
x86-64 running Solaris
SPARC running Solaris X X
PowerLinux LE running Red Hat Linux X
PowerLinux LE running SUSE Linux X
XA Switch Module
When the Enterprise Server feature is enabled, the DB2 XA switch module is provided and is available on the same platforms as are indicated in the Availability section above.
Certification of RDBMS Precompilers for Native COBOL
Certification of RDBMS precompilers with Micro Focus products is the responsibility of the RDBMS vendor, rather than Micro Focus. You can find IBM document certification information for DB2/COBOL applications within the IBM Information Center for DB2, in the topic Support for database application development in COBOL.
Preprocessor
DB2 ECM supports the following database preprocessors:
  • IBM DB2 LUW Version 10.5 or later
  • IBM DB2 Connect Version 10.5 or later
Testing
For this version, DB2 ECM was tested with DB2 LUW 10.5 and 11.1.

Database Access - OpenESQL

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Availability
Feature/Platform Native and JVM Managed COBOL 32-bit Native and JVM Managed COBOL 64-bit
x86-64 running Red Hat Linux X X
x86-64 running SUSE Linux X X
x86-64 running Solaris X X
IBM System p running AIX X X
IBM System z running Red Hat Linux X X
IBM System z running SUSE Linux X X
Itanium running HP-UX X X
SPARC running Solaris X X
PowerLinux LE running SUSE Linux X
PowerLinux LE running Red Hat Linux X
XA Switch Module
When the Enterprise Server feature is enabled, the ODBC One-phase Commit switch module is provided and is available on the same platforms as are indicated in the Availability section above.

The PostgreSQL switch module is available on the following platforms:

  • x86-64 running Red Hat Linux
  • x86-64 running SUSE Linux
Native COBOL
  • OpenESQL supports access to relational databases using ODBC 3.0-compliant drivers
  • Refer to your driver vendor's documentation to determine whether your driver is suitable for use with OpenESQL
JVM Managed COBOL
OpenESQL supports access to relational databases using JDBC 4.0-compliant JDBC drivers. The following table shows the tested DBMSs and their corresponding JDBC driver filenames:
Tested DBMS Versions JDBC 4.0 Compliant Drivers
DB2 LUW 10.5

DB2 LUW 11.1

db2jcc4.jar (and db2jcc_license_cu.jar)
Oracle 12.2 ojdbc7.zip*
Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Microsoft SQL Server 2014

Microsoft SQL Server 2016

Microsoft SQL Server 2017

sqljdbc4.jar
EDB PostgreSQL 10.5 postgresql-42.0.0.jre7.jar
*Some Oracle JDBC drivers are distributed as .zip rather than .jar files.

To use JDBC DataSource Objects, you must also install and configure a JNDI server.

  • If you are using a Java application server, it includes a JNDI server you can use to configure DataSource objects. This process is described in the Java documentation for the application server.
  • If you are not using a Java application server, or if you require a standalone JNDI server to configure DataSource objects for initial evaluation and development, see the To install and configure Simple-JNDI topic in this documentation set for instructions on downloading, installing, and configuring the open source JNDI server Simple-JNDI for this purpose.
Testing
For this version, OpenESQL was tested with:
  • Oracle 12.2 and 18c
  • DB2 LUW 10.5 and 11.1
  • SQL Server 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2017
  • PowerLinux LE using DB2 LUW 10.5 only
  • EDB PostgreSQL 10.5 and MySQL 5.7 (5.3 ODBC drivers only) on the following platforms:
    • x86-64 running Red Hat Linux
    • x86-64 running SUSE Linux
Note: Micro Focus provides compatibility for PostgreSQL and MySQL but does not directly contribute to or support either open source project. Any issues relating to the functionality of either DBMS should be addressed through an open source support vendor.
Planned
Support for the following is planned for future release:
  • SQL Server 2017
  • Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition

Both running on the following platforms:

  • x86-64 running Red Hat
  • x86-64 running SUSE Linux

XML Extensions

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  • XML Extensions has the same requirements as Visual COBOL. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available. See the XML Extensions for Visual COBOL, available from the Visual COBOL product documentation section of the Micro Focus SupportLine Web site for more details.
Parent topic: System Requirements
Related concepts
Database Access
Related tasks
To install and configure Simple-JNDI
Related information
Hardware Requirements
Operating Systems Supported
Software Requirements