Additional Software Requirements on Windows

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 Servers 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

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.

Support for the following Java application servers using the following JDKs is planned for future release:

Application Servers JDK (vendor) Java EE COBOL RA
JBoss EAP 7.0 (AS 7.5) 1.8 (Oracle), 1.8 (OpenJDK) 7 X
IBM WebSphere 8.5.5

(UNIX: all platforms)

1.7, 1.8 (IBM) 6 X
Tomcat 8.5.x* 1.7, 1.8 (Oracle), 1.8 (OpenJDK)
*Apache 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).
Note: If you experience any incompatibility issues when using these third-party products with Visual COBOL, please report them to SupportLine. Until full support is available, a timely effort to resolve incompatibility issues will be made; however, Micro Focus does not guarantee full compatibility until we have fully tested our software updates against these products.

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 generated using the Interface Mapping Toolkit.

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)

7 X
Oracle WebLogic 12.2.1 1.8 (Oracle) 7 X
IBM WebSphere 9.0 1.8 (IBM) 7 X
Tomcat 9.0.x* 1.8 (AdoptOpenJDK)
*Apache 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.

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.

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.

Note: The setup file installs .NET Framework v4.5.2.

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.

Note: COBSQL (Pro*COBOL) is supported for native COBOL only.
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 and 18c.

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.

Note: DB2 ECM is supported for native COBOL only.
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 JVM COBOL 32-bit Native and JVM 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
JVM 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.zip1
Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Microsoft SQL Server 2014

Microsoft SQL Server 2016

Microsoft SQL Server 2017

sqljdbc4.jar2
EDB PostgreSQL 10.5 postgresql-42.0.0.jre7.jar
1Some Oracle JDBC drivers are distributed as .zip rather than .jar files.

2 On Windows platforms, if you are not using Windows authentication, no additional resources are required. However, if you are using Kerberos authentication with a driver version of 4.0 or later, although integrated authentication is not required, you might need to follow additional configuration steps as described in the driver documentation. No additional resources are required for UNIX platforms.

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
  • 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

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.

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.