G'day igrepstuff,

Welcome to the Monastery.

I have done something fairly similar to this; although, it was a long, long time ago (>15 years). The basic steps, as best as I remember, were:

1. Use cron to start Perl script on local Unix machine.
2. Perl script connects, via ftp, to remote MVS machine.
3. The ftp quote command started COBOL program on MVS machine.
4. The ftp get command retrieved output from MVS machine.
5. Retrieved output processed on the local Unix machine.
6. Rinse and repeat on next cron cycle.

It was somewhat more involved than that; for instance, there was the ability to monitor progress on the remote machine from the local machine. However, the important bit is that everything, except basic FTP commands (like get), were performed using the quote command.

I don't know how the commands via quote were set up for the remote machine; it's not something I've ever had to do; I can't help you further with that aspect of your task.

I suggest you speak to the administrators of your remote machine and discuss your task with them.

[As already pointed out by others, this in not really a Perl question. We do allow some latitude with off-topic questions; however, please add an [OT] prefix to your question's title. See "How do I change/delete my post?" if you're not sure how to do this. Thankyou.]