Runtime Fees: The Hidden Tax in Your Tech Stack

Runtime Fees: The Hidden Tax in Your Tech Stack

In COBOL environments, runtime-based licensing imposes recurring costs each time an application is executed—costs that persist well beyond the initial compiler purchase. While initially tolerable in controlled, limited use environments, runtime-based licensing fees...

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The Many Charms of COBOL

The Many Charms of COBOL

 During my studies in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), also known as East Germany, I immersed myself in the world of programming languages. My first companions on this journey were PL/1 and the ubiquitous assembler ASM370. Why these two? Well, the...

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Thoughts from a Mainframe on Halloween

Thoughts from a Mainframe on Halloween

It was a dark and stormy night in the data center. 🌩️ The fans hummed softly, and the LEDs blinked like little ghosts in the darkness. I had experienced many Halloween nights as a mainframe, but this one was different. There was an eerie presence in the air — and it...

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z/VSE: The forgotten operating system

z/VSE: The forgotten operating system

In the world of mainframe operating systems, z/VSE is often overshadowed by better-known siblings such as z/OS. But z/VSE has an impressive story worth telling. Virtual Storage Extended (z/VSE) is an operating system designed specifically for IBM mainframes. It was...

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Modernizing the Mainframe Without Losing Knowledge

Modernizing the Mainframe Without Losing Knowledge

Bridging JCL and APIs in Mainframe Modernization Mainframe development sits between two realities. On one side, there is the traditional world of JCL, structured batch processes, and deterministic workflows. On the other, we see the rise of API-driven automation,...

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