What’s up with COBOL in April? Let’s see
Hi everyone,
Welcome to Rocket® COBOL Fuel, your monthly source for all things COBOL. In this issue, you’ll learn about the GenAI-driven unit testing for COBOL applications, upcoming events, and modernization story from Jove Informática.
COBOL, Unit Testing, and GenAI
How does it work?
Unit testing is a level of testing designed to validate that a ‘unit’ of software performs as it was designed, where a ‘unit’ is the smallest piece of testable software. Instead of testing the full application with sometimes million lines of code, you only test the part of the program that has been changed.
Traditionally, this has proved difficult for COBOL applications both on and off the mainframe as the code was not written with this type of testing in mind. The Rocket Unit Test framework makes this adoption possible.
With the framework, unit testing allows teams to validate business logic at the smallest level, detect regressions early, and modernize safely without rewriting decades of proven functionality. Unit tests turn complex, legacy code into something measurable, reliable, and easier to evolve, supporting faster delivery, higher quality, and greater confidence for both seasoned COBOL engineers and the next generation of developers.
Read more about unit testing for COBOL in our blog post, and stay tuned for major news about AI Unit Testing for COBOL in May.
While this blog post focuses on mainframe COBOL, the unit testing framework described is also applicable to distributed COBOL applications.
COBOL x Visual Studio Code Demo
We’re excited to welcome you to the first episode of COBOL in Action, a new video series with short, hands-on, highly technical sessions with product demos. In this episode, we explore the Rocket COBOL Visual Studio Code extension, highlighting key capabilities such as source control integration and AI features. We invite you to share your questions, feedback, and topic ideas in the comments so we can shape future sessions around what matters most to you.
COBOL events
Join our in-person events dedicated to COBOL modernization and networking. You’ll hear real world success stories, see live product demos (including how GenAI can safely accelerate COBOL development), and learn best practices to evolve mission critical COBOL applications for the future.
- Madrid COBOL Day, May 6th
Hear the modernization stories from RSI, Indra Group, and ANOOK
Register
- Sydney COBOL Day, May 19th
Register
- Melbourne COBOL Day, May 21st
Register
- Brisbane COBOL Day, May 26th
Register
Watch the recording
Sammons x Rocket COBOL: Growing with .NET, APIs, and containers
In March, we hosted a webinar with Brad Curry, Director and Principal Architect at Sammons Financial Group, who shared insights from their modernization journey. Brad explained what drove the transformation, how they chose modernization over a rewrite, and how they re-architected a mission-critical COBOL system using .NET, APIs, and containers to improve scalability and maintainability.
Modernization Champion: Jove Informática
Jove Informática needed to modernize a heritage media intelligence platform to reach new markets and reduce costs. They turned to Rocket Software to bridge the gap and upgrade their user interface without losing decades of business intelligence. Read the full case study to learn how Rocket® Visual COBOL® provided the solution.
Have questions or suggestions for future Rocket COBOL Fuel newsletters? Please share
your feedback in the comments.
