
Ask HN: Mimic Mainframe Financial Computations in Real-Time - furiousandre
tl;dr Looking for a language or platform to mimic mainframe financial computations in real-time.<p>Hi all - Currently working on a large project attempting to replicate financial computations of a batch based mainframe COBOL system in real time with multiple users (400 concurrent). Our app is currently web based and allows sales associates to view, edit, and model financial adjustments (e.g. price changes, rate changes) in real time before these changes are batch uploaded to the mainframe. Users need to view financial impact at a low level (individual account) as well as at a high level (by business line).<p>Current stack is ASP.NET Web Forms and all heavy financial and logical computations are done within SQL Sever. (I am the database designer &#x2F; programmer and also the subject matter expert). Performance is fine but only because we tightly control the scope and size of each page load. (For example, late last year, our business proponents asked for a feature and I spent three months crafting a story per my team lead on how to say no.)<p>Our application is about to expand and I am not looking forward to using our current tech stack or division of processing labor. In reality, we will probably continue with the limited platform we have but I&#x27;d really like to try a different &#x2F; modern approaches if anybody has them!
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furiousandre
So I’ve been thinking about a few crazy ideas :-) 1\. Move computations and
logic out of the database > Computations require so much data, why not run
bare metal on the database?

2\. Move to an SPA like approach and send only raw data on demand

3\. Continue using current .NET tech stack OR do some greenfield development
in a different tech stack. > Rust, Haskell, Elixir, Julia, Elm, etc.

4\. Change from web based to desktop client-server > Take advantage of desktop
to power computations. > Perhaps use a distributed version control concept

5\. Event sourcing to handle state / auditing

6\. Spark or something else for real time analytics...or everything

