Modernization with Visual COBOL enables fast, easy online access

How modernization made the difference for Treasury of the Republic of Cyprus

Annual cost reduction of €175,000

Return on investment within 21 months

Improved developer efficiency

Modern application development environment

About Treasury of the Republic of CyprusCORE APPLICATION: Payroll application

PREVIOUS TECHNOLOGY: NCR Unix platform written in RM COBOL

The Department of Information Technology Services (DITS) provides the technical management and support for the Treasury’s Government Payroll Systems.

Every month the Treasury processes payroll information for

its 42,000 government officials and employees. Its payroll application was based on an obsolete NCR Unix platform and written in RM COBOL. This complex application contained many business rules and more than 20 years’ worth of invaluable intellectual property.

With growing economic pressures and internal cost controls, the Treasury decided to modernize its payroll processes. This would enable online access to Government Officials and Employee payroll information.

To achieve this application modernization, DITS first explored a commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) package solution, but it lacked the functionality needed for existing business operations. DITS would have had to add back much of its unique intellectual property within the existing business rules.

DITS also looked into re-writing the application to a more modern language, but it was deemed too costly.

Then DITS looked at re-using its existing proven business rules on a new, modern platform.

Re-using minimizes change and risk

Visual COBOL pays off

Visual COBOL enabled the Treasury to re-use and modernize its existing COBOL applications on a new, modern platform enabling fast, easy online access to payroll information. This minimizes change and risk to existing functionality.

Giving 42,000 Government Officials and Employees instant access to their pay slips eliminates printing and postage costs of €175,000.

The modernization process involved moving 800 programs and 1 million lines of RM COBOL code

to Visual COBOL and deploying it on a Windows 2008 environment. This was done in just 2 weeks.

Improving the development and testing process has increased developer productivity and efficiency due to the easy-to-use development and debugging capability. Now, developers can easily respond to business service demands.

SOLUTIONS: Visual COBOL for Visual Studio, COBOL Server

Greater productivity and efficiency gains

We were amazed at how quickly our new developers were up to speed with Visual COBOL – at least 30% faster than with the old development environment. It has given us greater productivity and efficiency gains.

Savvas Vryonides

Head of the Information Officers team

supporting the Treasury Applications

We have been impressed by the clear capabilities of Micro Focus Visual COBOL. A 20-year old application has been given a new lease of life and performs in a much more cost-effective and user-friendly manner. We will also have achieved full return on our investment within 21 months.

Start a new era of innovation

Discover how Visual COBOL’s easy-to-use tools can help you develop, maintain and modernize your applications here.

Read the complete Treasury of the Republic of Cyprus story in the case study.

See how other companies are modernizing their COBOL applications.