Wang VS COBOL to Open, Industry Standard Systems

Programs | Screens | Data | Procedures | Optional 

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UNICON's Wang to Open Systems migration solution allows organizations to retain the heavy investment made in their highly customized systems applications and knowledgeable programming/user staff, while bringing them to the forefront of Open Systems technology. Unicon's fully automated solution converts existing VS COBOL applications to pure ANSI standard Open Systems COBOL.

The main features of Unicon's Wang conversion solution include...

PROGRAMS

Unicon's Wang VS conversion tool converts the programs written in VS COBOL to the latest ANSI standard Open Systems COBOL to run in native UNIX or Windows/NT environments. The original program structure and logic is fully maintained.

SCREENS

The VS screens are converted directly to pure ANSI COBOL screen sections with NO proprietary screen handlers. The structure and syntax of the screen section screens in the Open Systems COBOL are very similar to the WANG VS Cobol screens.

DATA

The disk I/O statements in the converted COBOL programs are constructed so that they remain essentially the same as on the Wang. Unicon's data file converter automatically converts the WANG DMS ISAM data files to Open Systems ISAM files (Vision or C-ISAM) and all necessary indices are rebuilt. No additional work needs to be done to the data files; they are fully converted and ready for processing. 

The customer is not required to perform the laborious task of copying the indexed files to sequential files, then converting the sequential to Open Systems and re-building all the indexes. Unicon's fast and accurate methodology of converting data files is not only useful to ensure a smooth conversion of data at the 'cutover' to go live on the new Open System, but it also makes system testing a significantly more manageable procedure when production data can be easily and quickly copied to the Open System test environment to conduct parallel runs and user testing.

PROCEDURES

The procedures are converted to Open Systems sequential text files. No additional work needs to be done to the procedure files; they are ready to run using the Unicon procedure interpreter.

OPTIONAL MIGRATION ENVIRONMENT

A choice must be made whether to migrate to UNIX, Windows/NT, or a mixture of both (see 'Open Systems' in the menu to the left). Those companies who choose UNIX as their target environment can sometimes be intimidated by the impending 'culture shock' associated with moving to a system perceived as being less user friendly than Wang. 

To counter this problem, Unicon has developed a highly effective, optional suite of utilities known collectively as UNIshell. The UNIshell optional migration environment is basically a look-alike Wang VS command processor for UNIX that allows its users to remain fully productive by using familiar tools and utilities in the new environment, eradicating any drop in production, while they learn the new UNIX commands and functionality at a manageable pace. The UNIshell can simply drop away when it is no longer required.

The UNIshell optional migration environment provides: WANG Utilities (COPY, BACKUP, DISPLAY, etc.) Print Spooler (Re-queue, Hold, Forms, Release, Class, etc.) Background Manager (Submit, Class, Initiators, etc.) File Manager (Delete, Rename, Display, Print, etc.) Development Tools (Editor, Compiler and Debugger Interfaces, etc.) Command Processor (Defaults, Devices, Queues, etc.)

Although UNIshell is optional, Unicon strongly recommends its use to greatly smooth the implementation of the converted system for those companies targeting UNIX.

We trust the above provides some insight into our Wang VS to Open System conversion services. For a more in-depth look into this conversion, please contact us in order that we may run through the process with you and ascertain your needs and targets. We will be pleased to work to provide you with the best possible migration path to installing open systems architecture technology.

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