Software License Verification – COBOL

In software project management, software testing, and software engineering, verification and validation (V&V) is the process of checking that a software system meets specifications and that it fulfills its intended purpose. It may also be referred to as software quality control. It is normally the responsibility of software testers as part of the software development lifecycle.

• Verification: Are we building the product right?
• Validation: Are we building the right product?
• Software Verification: The process of evaluating software to determine whether the products of a given development phase satisfy the conditions imposed at the start of that phase.
• Software Validation: The process of evaluating software during or at the end of the development process to determine whether it satisfies specified requirements.

In other words, software verification is ensuring that the product has been built according to the requirements and design specifications, while software validation ensures that the product actually meets the user’s needs, and that the specifications were correct in the first place. Software verification ensures that “you built it right”. Software validation ensures that “you built the right thing”. Software validation confirms that the product, as provided, will fulfill its intended use.

We have experienced that organizations have licenses for COBOL compilers and use limited functionality and risk paying more than is software vendor necessary.
This is especially important if a company finds themselves in a license verification discussion with a software vendor as a result of a modernization project or process!
Via our software health check and analysis process we have been able to help several organization not only reduce their monthly and yearly software charges, but assist them better plan and budget for future software charges and potential license verification pit falls!!