DBMaker Ease of Implementation

High implementation costs are typically the primary reason that new features/functions are not purchased and integrated into an application. When trying to integrate existing COBOL applications with RDBMS technology, this becomes a conundrum, where the cost of lost, damaged, or improperly accessed private data is matched by database implementation costs. Implementation costs can include the following:

Hardware
RDBMS technology requires processing, and disk space. In most cases this will require the purchase of additional memory and processing power to support the additional processing. While hardware costs are not very significant, this does end up costing time for upgrading, or moving applications to a new platform, etc. DBMaker has a very small footprint (using very little memory), and efficiently uses processing cycles so that machine upgrades are far less likely than with other databases.

Installation
Database installation is typically a very involved process. Database size needs to be defined, locations assigned, partitioning information designed, all before the installation is complete. This can require days or weeks of effort to complete.

DBMaker installation consists of very few steps. This allows you to have DBMaker running within minutes of the time you load the DBMaker CD, or have completed the Download process.

Training
Databases have their own technical terms, syntax, etc. This leads to a wealth of books that explain how to setup a database, start writing code, work with the database, etc. It can take a very long time to learn enough of the terms in order to properly setup or utilize the database.

DBMaker is different. Setup instructions are fast and easy to follow. Launching the database is accomplished easily. DBMaker does not require use of SQL within COBOL programs. Therefore training needs are greatly reduced.

Integration
RDBMS standards require the coding of SQL statements within the application. Changing all of the COBOL file access strings to be the appropriate SQL string is very time consuming. Some databases do not directly support the equivalent functions, so you will need to rewrite portions of your application prior to being able to access information stored on the database. This can easily take many man-months to accomplish on a medium size COBOL application.

DBMaker does not require any changes to the COBOL source. As the code is not changed, there is no expense in identifying the places where changes should be, making the correct changes, verifying that functionally is retained, etc.

Migration
The basic concept behind RDBMS is to have a process that controls all of the data access. For this to happen, the data storage needs to be under database control. This requires two steps. The first is to setup the database so that it can store all of the elements that are in the COBOL files. The second step is to move all of the data from the COBOL files into the database. Often ignored before installation, it can take significant resources to setup the database correctly and to create routines to move data from the COBOL files into the database.

DBMaker provides access to a process that will automatically convert all file definitions into the appropriate data structure. DBMaker also provides routines that will take the data from the COBOL files, and load the data into the database.

Conclusion

COBOL database implementation for DBMaker is easy to accomplish, and takes very little resources. DBMaker uses machine resources efficiently, is easy to install, requires no lengthy learning process, does not require COBOL code changes, and provides the routines and functions needed to quickly migrate an entire application to RDBMS. For more information, you can review the installation process, see the conversion steps, or request a sample program that demonstrates the process required for moving from COBOL files to a powerful, industry standard database, DBMaker.