Overview

IBM® Enterprise COBOL for z/OS® (ABO) improves the performance of already compiled IBM COBOL programs. ABO does not require source code, source code migration, or performance options tuning. It uses modern optimization technology to target the latest IBM Z, including IBM z17™, to accelerate the performance of COBOL applications.

The main function of ABO is to optimize COBOL program modules to improve performance. ABO optimizes directly from the binary code inside the program modules, and this allows ABO to ensure the program logic remains exactly the same. In addition to optimization, ABO has some other useful features:
  • Use the ABO RTIBIND option to enable your COBOL program modules for performance profiling by the Run Time Instrumentation (RTI) Profiler included with ABO. Both the original and optimized program modules can be enabled for profiling. A detailed performance report is produced to help you identify performance bottlenecks.
  • Use the ABO SCAN=Y option to obtain insight into your COBOL application inventory. Using this feature provides details on the makeup of your COBOL modules, including compiler versions, compilation dates and more.
ABO comes with tools to improve the process of realizing performance gains of your COBOL applications.
  • The ABO Assistant simplifies the ABO evaluation process, accelerates the deployment of ABO optimized modules, and allows you to easily see the performance improvements from using ABO. The ABO Assistant is a suite of tools to automate the identification and optimization of your top CPU consuming COBOL batch and CICS® applications. The ABO Assistant enables you to drill down from high level SMF data all the way to obtain concrete performance evaluation results, and to help prepare your key optimized modules for deployment.
  • The Run Time Instrumentation (RTI) Profiler allows you to profile COBOL applications to determine performance bottlenecks. It collects and reports on the execution time CPU performance characteristics of your batch z/OS and CICS applications.