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I’m unfamiliar with JCL, but from a quick search it sounds like most scripts don’t use much of the language. Still, I’d bet that most of the JCL functionality is used if you look at a decent-sized collection of scripts.

How much of the full JCL do you think would be necessary to reimplement in order to get, say, 30% of the existing scripts to work?

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From memory of working with mainframe programmers back in the 1990s, it isn't just JCL you need. Cobol programs typically used databases and transaction monitors as well.

If you're lucky the database will be one of IBM's SQL databases. If you're unlucky it will be something like IMS.

You just reminded me that in the mid-90s I took a TCP/IP workshop where the other attendees worked on mainframes. The chasm between what I was familiar with and what they were was impressively wide.

I have heard horror stories about IMS but have been fortunate to never have to use it. DB2 is pretty decent and very reliable.

IMS is a hierarchical database.

Under OS2200, DMS is also a hierarchical database, and (unfortunately) we use it.

My developers have described it as the Fort Knox of databases, being very difficult to get data out.

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