Calling COBOL from Java

[DellHater]

Hi

Got a system we are looking to implement that will be written in java and then make calls to a suite of COBOL programs sitting in Unix.
Anyone got any experience of this ? Any suggestions of how to call the COBOL modules ?

cheers

Steve

 

[TonHu]

If both software run on the same system:
You will be using JNI, and transfering data from buffers to other buffers (Cobol side) converting to the correct bitnes and data format, and later converting the results back to Java data format. It's quite a tedious work.
We have a proprietary appserver/middleware solution that does this, but this is about as much as I am allowed to tell about it...

If the apps run on different systems:
Connect through SOA of some sort, it's slower then through JNI, but it's more universal, and the data conversion is done when switching to the SOA format (usually XML sometimes json).

 

[Diancecht]

Take a look at how your transactional monitor can export the cobol services. I'd bet Web Services is an option: it's easy to handle but has some overhead that should not be important.

Are you using J2EE (application servers like Weblogic or WAS)? What transactional monitor are you using for COBOL, Tuxedo?

Cheers,
Dian