Additional Software Requirements

.NET Core

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.NET Core SDK

You must have installed .NET Core SDK 2.1 or later before you can use Visual COBOL to build a COBOL application for use with .NET Core. Installing Visual Studio's ".NET Core cross-platform development" component installs .NET Core SDK 2.1.

If you want to publish COBOL applications to work with a versions of .NET Core other than 2.1 you can download and install the relevant versions of the .NET Core SDK. See Microsoft: .NET Downloads for more information.

Visual Studio

You must be using Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9 or later to be able to develop and publish a COBOL application for use on .NET Core.

In addition, you must have installed a version of the .NET Core SDK. You can install .NET Core SDK 2.1 by installing Visual Studio's ".NET Core cross-platform development" component. If you do not have this component installed you can install it from Visual Studio by clicking Help > Micro Focus Product Help > Install Missing Feature(s) > .NET Core development .

Application Server JCA support for Enterprise Server

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

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

Code Analysis

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Apache Ant is required to perform code analysis from the Visual COBOL command line. You can download Apache Ant from Apache's Web site.

COBOL on Microsoft Azure

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This release supports the Microsoft Azure SDK version 3.0.

Microsoft Azure requires that you install some additional software. See the Microsoft Microsoft Azure Web site for a full list of the required software.

Consolidated Trace Facility

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The Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or later is required for the CTF Viewer. It is available from the Microsoft .NET downloads area.

Database Access - COBSQL (Pro*COBOL)

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Before deploying a COBSQL application, be sure to install and configure all applicable third-party software.

Availability

Feature/Platform	32-bit	64-bit
x86-64 running Windows	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, 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.

Testing

For this version, COBSQL was tested with Oracle Pro*COBOL version 12.2.

Database Access - DB2 ECM

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Before developing or deploying a DB2 ECM application, be sure to install and configure all applicable third-party software.

Availability

Feature/Platform	32-bit	64-bit
x86-64 running Windows	X	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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Before developing or deploying an OpenESQL application, be sure to install and configure all applicable third-party software.

Availability

Feature/Platform	Native and .NET COBOL 32-bit	Native and .NET COBOL 64-bit
x86-64 running Windows	X	X

XA Switch Module

When the Enterprise Server feature is enabled, the ODBC One-phase Commit, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL switch modules are provided and available on the same platforms as are indicated in the Availability section above.

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

.NET COBOL

• OpenESQL supports access to relational databases using compliant .NET framework drivers
• OpenESQL has been tested against the following ADO.NET data providers:
  • Microsoft provider for SQL Server
  • Microsoft provider for Oracle
  • IBM DB2
  • Oracle Data Provider for .NET (ODP.NET) - fully managed and unmanaged providers
  • OleDb
  • Managed ODBC .NET providers
  • Npgsql 3.2.2 for EDB PostgreSQL

SQL CLR Integration

The following software is required to use the SQL CLR integration feature, which is specifically for the development and deployment of COBOL stored procedures under Microsoft SQL Server. This feature is available for projects created using the SQL Server Database Project template, which becomes available after installing the ASP.NET and web development tools feature from the Visual Studio IDE (see To install missing features from the IDE for details).

Projects based on the SQL Server Database Project template require:

• Microsoft SQL Server Tools (SSDT SDK)
• Visual Studio 2017 or later Professional, Enterprise or Community Edition
• Any of the following:

  	Target	Version	Microsoft Recommendation
  SQL Server 2012 and later	.NET Frameworks 4.x	CLR v4.0-based	.NET Framework 4.5.2
  SQL Azure Database (option 1)	.NET Frameworks (2.0, 3.0, 3.5)	CLR v2.0-based	Review the latest Microsoft recommendations to select an appropriate .NET Framework.
  SQL Azure Database (option 2)	.NET Frameworks 4.x	CLR v4.0-based

If you are accessing Microsoft SQL Server from a remote machine, install the same Visual COBOL or COBOL Server version on the remote Microsoft SQL Server machine as you have running on your local machine. For additional information, see SQL Server COBOL Stored Procedures.

Important: The SQL CLR Database project template available in previous versions of Visual COBOL is no longer supported. Projects based on the SQL CLR Database project template are automatically upgraded to use the SQL Server Database project template when opened in Visual COBOL for Visual Studio 2019.

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
• EDB PostgreSQL 10.5
• MySQL 5.7 (5.3 ODBC drivers only)

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:

• Azure SQL Database (Managed Instance)
• Azure SQL Database (Logical server)
• Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition

Deployment - running . NET COBOL applications from a network server

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For .NET COBOL applications that you run from a network server, the server must have the Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.5.2 or later and the Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable Runtime installed.

Interface Mapping Toolkit (IMTK)

.NET client generation for Service Interfaces requires Visual C++, which is an optional feature of Visual Studio 2015 and later. To ensure that Visual C++ is installed with Visual Studio, you must do a custom installation of Visual Studio, and specifically choose the Visual C++ option.

Java Development Kit (JDK)

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Windows Forms

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• Microsoft Visual Studio is required for using the Interface Mapping Toolkit (IMTK) to generate Windows Forms and ASP.NET Web site test clients.
• Microsoft Internet Information Service (IIS) is also required for generating Windows Forms test clients.

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.