Additional Software Requirements

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 JCA support for Enterprise Server
Code Analysis
COBOL on Microsoft Azure
Consolidated Trace Facility
Database Access - COBSQL (Pro*COBOL)
Database Access - DB2 ECM
Database Access - OpenESQL
Deployment - running . NET COBOL applications from a network server
Interface Mapping Toolkit (IMTK)
Java Development Kit (JDK)
Windows Forms
XML Extensions

Application Server JCA support for Enterprise Server

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

Various Java EE versions are supported for the deployment of EJBs generated using the Interface Mapping Toolkit, as follows:

Java EE 5 includes support for EJB 3.0 and Java Connector Architecture 1.5
Java EE 6 includes support for EJB 3.1 and Java Connector Architecture 1.6
Java EE 7 includes support for EJB 3.2 and Java Connector Architecture 1.7

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

Application Servers	JDK (vendor)	Java EE	COBOL RA
JBoss EAP 6.4 (AS 7.5)	1.6, 1.7, 1.8 (Oracle), 1.8 (OpenJDK)	6	X
Oracle WebLogic 10.3.x	1.6, 1.7 (Oracle)	5	X
Oracle WebLogic 12.1.x	1.6, 1.7, 1.8 (Oracle)	6	X
Oracle WebLogic 12.2.1	1.8 (Oracle)	7	X
IBM WebSphere 8.5	1.6, 1.7 (IBM)	6	X
IBM WebSphere 9.0	1.8 (IBM)	7	X
Tomcat 7.0.x*	1.6, 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).

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 RAs and ECI
JBoss EAP 7.0 (AS 7.5)	1.8 (Oracle), 1.8 (OpenJDK)	7	X
IBM WebSphere 8.5.5	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.

Code Analysis

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

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

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)

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:

Sybase Open Client Embedded SQL/COBOL Version 11.1 or later
Oracle Pro*COBOL Version 11.2, 12.1, and 12.2
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 11.2, 12.1, and 12.2.

Database Access - DB2 ECM

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 9.7 or later
IBM DB2 Connect Version 9.7 or later

Testing

For this version, DB2 ECM was tested with DB2 LUW 9.7, 10.1, 10.5, and 11.1.

Database Access - OpenESQL

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.

Projects based on the SQL Server Database Project template require:

Microsoft SQL Server Tools (SSDT SDK)
Either of the following:
- Visual Studio Shell 2015
- Visual Studio 2015 Professional, Enterprise or Community Edition

Any of the following:

	Target	Version	Microsoft Recommendation
SQL Server 2008 R2 and later	.NET Frameworks (2.0, 3.0, 3.5)	CLR v2.0-based	.NET Framework 3.5.1
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 2015.

Testing

For this version, OpenESQL was tested with:

Oracle 11.2 and 12.1
DB2 LUW 9.7, 10.1, 10.5, and 11.1
SQL Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2017
EDB PostgreSQL 9.6
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.

Deployment - running . NET COBOL applications from a network server

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)

For COBOL JVM code and Java Interoperability, Oracle's Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) 7, 8 (32 or 64-bit versions), and Java 9 (64-bit version only), and AdoptOpenJDK's OpenJDK 8 with Hotspot are supported. You can download Oracle's Java SE from Oracle's Web site and install it anywhere on your machine. Alternatively, you can download AdoptOpenJDK's OpenJDK 8 with Hotspot from AdoptOpenJDK's Web site and unpack the archive anywhere on your machine.

Windows Forms

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

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.