Cobol application modernization

We are a small Company with a Cobol application that we wish to modernize and enable to web. Please read carefully before bidding. ## Deliverables Hello coders! we are a Company that developed a huge terminal-based (ASCII) cobol application (entirely written in RmCobol85, version 6.10) for our Customer. The application has been fixed, changed and enhanced for about? 18 years by a group and we are in the need to modernize it, to be more specific we need to: 1.? **Bring the application to the Web:? **by converting its ASCII frontend into HTML/XHTML and Javascript or similar technology. Please notice that solutions that make use of Sofware wrappers that just? transform the screen of the application into an image (.jpg, .gif or similar formats)? are out of scope and will not be taken into account as a solution. 2. **Change the model to make it use a RDBMS:** the ? actual source code uses only legacy archives ("SELECT ... ASSIGN" statements), we would like to change the program so that it uses database tables instead of archives and transactions instead of file operation statements (READ,WRITE,SEARCH etc..). ? The solution may or may not preserve the actual source code business logic written in COBOL. For instance you may choose to translate the application into Java and then rework it to satisfy the requirements above, or just rework the actual source and change only the parts needed to satisfy the requirements. Please notice that the application is monolithic: there is no Model-View-Controller separation. Here are some statistics I collected about the source code involved in the transformation: <colgroup> <col style="width: 183pt" width="244" /> <col style="width: 131pt" width="175" /> <col style="width: 299pt" width="399" /></colgroup> | Attribute | Value | Notes | | Program Name | [NOT DISCLOSED] | | | Program Number (.CBL) | 4208 | | | Program Number (.COP, .MSK, .INC ...) | 2238 | Programs that are included via "COPY" statements | | Total COBOL Source files | 6446 | | | Others (.EXE) | 2 | External Programs called by one or more .CBL files | | Physical SLOC | 3176885 | Total number of Source lines of code | | Logical SLOC? | 2563594 | Comments and blank lines excluded | | Comments and blanks line % | 19,30% | Percent of comments and blank lines? | | LSLOC (Declaration)? | 902278 | Logical SLOC for the declaration part (From "Identification Division" to "Procedure Division") | | Variables | 226810 | Top level variables and file fields are not taken into account | | Total Files used | 750 | Total number of different files used. Includes permanent and temporary files (.TXT and COBOL legacy Archives) | | Permanent Files | 245 | Files normally used by the application and thus that represent the data base of the application | | Total source size (Bytes) | 129409777 | | | DISPLAY Statements | 192409 | Total number of DISPLAY statements | | ACCEPT Statements | 53367 | Total number of ACCEPT statements | | FILE READ Statements | 12625 | Total number of READ,SEARCH and SORT statements | | FILE WRITE Statements | 13767 | Total number of WRITE statements | | Forms | Not sure, about 1600-2000 | Total number of forms, windows and ASCII popups | Please consider that we will choose a bidder only if we are 100% confident that the work will be done as expected and in time (please specify how much elapsed time it will take to complete the whole project), so don't bid if you? do not have enough information or? are not familiar with this kind of jobs. Before accepting a bid, we will probably also require a mockup of about 3-4? CBL files? to make sure that? your solution is exactly what we need: We will send you the source programs and you will be asked to convert them and show us? your solution.? **Details added on May 21, 2008: ** It is our interest (and primary requirement) to have an estimation of elapsed time and cost of the total Project, we are not going to hire people but to buy a Project. The program basically allows the user to handle: ? 1. Insurance Policies (Vehicles, injuries, life) ? 2. Accounting ? 3. Vital statistics ? 4. Accidents ? 5. Collection and back payments ? 6. Statistics (out of scope) We don't know how many pages will be involved in the transformation, we just have a rough estimation of the total number of windows, forms and popups(should be 1600-2000 but we are absolutely not sure about that). The application has been developed over the years and our customer never wanted to invest in making? useful documentation.? Data migration is out of scope since the new application will use a new, empty database. If you need any other information? you are free to? ask me. **Details added on May 27, 2008: **- Since this is a huge job (If you don't understand this, please don't bid), we will split it into smaller parts. If you are interested in bidding for a small part of the Project, just let us know how many lines of codes? you are willing to convert along with price/time. - I attached a zip file containing detailed statistics about each program file. Files have been classified as COBOL if they are .CBL files or COPY if they are included by other files via "COPY" statements (.CPY/.INC/.MSK files ). Program names have been removed. - Please don't ask me to release full code, i'm only allowed to release a small part of it until the job is accepted. * * *This broadcast message was sent to all bidders on Friday Jul 4, 2008 6:40:16 AM: Just to keep everybody updated: I did a first presentation of all mock-ups and estimations to the upper management. I'm waiting to have some feedback from them in order to understand how to proceed, I think it will take some time since everything has to be discussed with our Client as well. In the meanwhile I'd like to thank everybody for your efforts on this Project. Please be patient, Regards Ivan * * *This broadcast message was sent to all bidders on Friday Aug 1, 2008 11:12:31 AM: I'm extending this bid request to the end of October since we had no formal answer from our Customer. I hope to have an answer by that date, otherwise I'll declare the Project as "sunk" and close the bid. Regards Ivan * * *This broadcast message was sent to all bidders on Tuesday Oct 7, 2008 8:44:13 AM: Dear all, I'm here to inform you that I'm closing this bid request. Our customer did not send us any feedback so far, they just reported us that they are working on it but I don't think they are really interested in starting the Project this year for budget reasons and so i see no point in keeping the bid request open. If they will ever be interested in continuing the work, I'll reopen/repost the Project. Thanks for your effort on this, Regards Ivan