Case study

Future-Proofing Payroll Systems with Rocket® Visual COBOL® and Rocket® COBOL Analyzer

A global consulting firm needed to modernize its payroll system to attract new talent and move to the cloud, without losing decades of business logic. Here's how they used Rocket® Visual COBOL® and Rocket® COBOL Analyzer to modernize their development environment and pave the way for future innovation.

Challenge

The firm’s payroll system relied on a shrinking pool of COBOL experts. They needed to modernize their development tools to attract new talent and prepare for a cloud migration, without a risky system rewrite.

Solution

Using Rocket® Visual COBOL® and Rocket® COBOL Analyzer, the firm modernized its development environment. They ran old and new systems in parallel to minimize risk, improving developer efficiency with an updated interface and better code insights.

Results

The new environment streamlined onboarding for developers. It also optimized workflows, enabled safer updates, and prepared their payroll system for a future cloud deployment.

Company

Industry: Technology

This global IT and business consulting firm provides scalable, sustainable IT solutions to clients worldwide. Helping organizations accelerate ROI, navigate complex technology, and meet long-term business goals.

Challenge

The company needed to modernize a complex, 700-program COBOL payroll system to attract new development talent and prepare for cloud migration.

The company's global business relied on a complex, 700-program payroll solution built on COBOL. Over decades, this system became difficult to manage. With key developers nearing retirement and a shrinking pool of COBOL experts, the company needed to modernize. Their goal was to update the development environment to attract new talent and prepare for cloud migration, all without rewriting the system, losing business logic, or disrupting global operations.

 

Solution

The firm adopted Rocket Visual COBOL and Rocket COBOL Analyzer to provide a modern, user-friendly interface while preserving proven business logic.

The company adopted Rocket Visual COBOL and Rocket COBOL Analyzer to modernize its development environment without disruption. The new, intuitive interface helped developers work more efficiently while preserving decades of business logic. By running old and new environments in parallel, the firm ensured business continuity. Rocket COBOL Analyzer also provided detailed codebase insights to accelerate onboarding and enable safer software updates.

Results

The modernization effort accelerated onboarding, optimized team workflows, and built a sustainable, cloud-ready infrastructure for the future.

Upgrading to Rocket Visual COBOL and Rocket COBOL Analyzer delivered immediate benefits. The company onboarded new developers in weeks by shifting to a modern, Visual Studio-based environment, which improved team efficiency and reduced bottlenecks. Code insights from the solutions enabled better decision-making, future-proofing systems for cloud migration and helping the company meet its long-term goals.

Get started with Rocket Visual COBOL and Rocket COBOL Analyzer

Discover how Rocket Software can help you streamline operations, attract new talent, and prepare your mission-critical applications for the cloud. 

Featured product

Rocket® Visual COBOL®

Modernize your COBOL applications across distributed, virtual and cloud platforms with the market-leading solution.

 

Rocket® COBOL Analyzer

Get full visibility into COBOL applications of any scale and complexity with a proven static code analysis toolset, enriched by GenAI insights and visualizations. 

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