The JULES Server is the Java undercarriage that provides the framework to run the COBOL applications and sits between the host operating system and the application COBOL code.
The server runs on the host machine as a standard resident batch process. The server is controlled by two main sources of parameters - one from the command line (scripts) and the other from the configuration file.

Startup Script Settings
The script file that starts the JULES server varies from platform to platform, but the values it covers are uniform across platforms. It is used to provide the following types of information to the system.
- The operational mode which determines what part of the configuration file is used.
- Base file location information (such as the location of the COBWORK directory).
- Global run type settings such as Trace and Logging information.

JULES Configuration File
Additional configuration information is found in the jules.cfg file. The configuration process employs a selection mechanism to pull various settings from the file based on a single input selection variable defined by the startup parameters.
Elements defined within the configuration file include:
- The supported applications and their library structure.
- A definition of the threads supported for each application.
- The options and parameters to be supplied to the application and or threads.
- The supported database names and the drivers used to access them.

The text used to supply the parameters uses a simple token substitution technique and IF/ENDIF facility. With this capability it is possible to configure multiple production/test configurations using the same physical file and avoid an otherwise complex maintenance situation.