[gerdesj]

"you need to have somebody who knows what they are doing"

That applies everywhere.

Your parent comment has managed to stuff a mainframe in a container and suddenly, hardware is no longer an issue. COBOL is well documented too so all good and so too will be the OS they are emulating. I used to look after a System 36 and I remember a creaking book shelf.

The code base may have some issues but it will be well battle tested due to age. Its COBOL so it is legible and understandable, even by the cool kids.

If you lack the skills to engage with something then, yes, there will be snags. If you are prepared to read specs, manuals and have some reasonable programing aptitude and so on then you will be golden. No need for geniuses, just conscientious hard workers.

It's not rocket science.

[Muromec]

It's not the point I'm trying to make. Yes you can do fancy stuff like that and de-mainframing COBOL is to run in on k8s is the path I would personally choose if I had to deal with it. It sounds like a lot of fun and the sense of accomplishment to finally have it running should be great.

The problem is -- it's very smart and unique, while organizations that have this kind of a problem don't want to depend on unique set of skills of a few highly capable individuals. Everything needs to be boring and people have to be replaceable.

In this paradigm, vendor java with aws lock-in is a cost, but in-house fancy stuff with cobol on k4s done by smart people in house is worse -- it's a risk.

[SonOfLilit]

The need applies everywhere, the difficulty of fulfilling it tends to be an order of magnitude more in places that tend to run COBOL.

I'm working at one. You wouldn't believe the stories.