History tells us that COBOL was born in 1959, conceived as a "temporary solution" for data processing. Nine years later, the provisional language became a standard, and in 2022… we still need it. Why? It all stems from a report published by Vanson Bourne in February, which reports a global use of 800 billion lines of COBOL code, three times more than previously estimated. In other words, COBOL's relevance is gigantic.
"The Great COBOL Crisis of 2020"
The last time we talked about COBOL was exactly two years ago, in the midst of the pandemic and with much of the world trapped in lockdown. COBOL jumped into the media after Phil Murphy, governor of New Jersey, announced a search for volunteers with COBOL knowledge to assist in maintaining the mainframes used to process unemployment insurance. The video of the press conference is still online:
Now, the crisis seems to have disappeared, but our dependence on COBOL has not. In fact, the numbers are impressive: According to a report published by Vanson Bourne, the global volume of COBOL code reaches 800 billion lines, three times more than previously believed.
The Relevance of COBOL in the Financial Universe
Vanson Bourne consulted architects, software engineers, developers, administrators, and IT executives from 49 countries to make its calculations, and also determined the strategic importance of COBOL applications for their current and future businesses. Another notable fact is that almost half of the participants expect an increase in the use of COBOL within the next twelve months. At the same time, 52 percent believe COBOL applications will continue for at least a decade, and more than 80 percent say COBOL will remain in use until they retire.
How do they plan to move forward with COBOL? Through modernization: Instead of adopting a rip and replace tactic with high cost and very long downtime cycles, 64 percent of participants plan to modernize their COBOL applications, while 72 percent see modernization itself as an overall business strategy.
Why? As programmer Derek Banas explains in his two-hour tutorial on the language, "people with money need COBOL". Practically the entire US economy depends on it, with 80 percent of financial operations and 95 percent of ATM transactions. The relevance of COBOL also extends to the treasury, defense payment processing, and almost all social security.
The Problem with COBOL
Although it is divided into several parts, we can say that there is a shortage of COBOL programmers, and new generations have no interest in learning it. The code they have to work with is very old, operates in multiple layers, and its documentation is chaotic at best (or nonexistent at worst). The idea of "eternal maintenance" is not attractive either, and transition processes are painful from start to finish. For example, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia retired COBOL from its core in 2012 with the help of Accenture and SAP SE, a venture of 750 million dollars and five years of work.
For this and other reasons, the call for COBOL programmers, new and old, remains in effect. The work is not easy, not glamorous, nor will it take you to the top of the App Store... but the financial universe will continue to depend on it, perhaps for decades.
Source: Micro Focus
