[open-cobol-list] newbie alert : cobol : 85 : data management : question

[Mayuresh Kathe]

hello,

how does cobol, and by virtue of it's standards adherence,
open-cobol, manage data?

as i'd mentioned in a previous email, i am working on a
self-funded project to use modern computing systems for
initiating and sustaining social change in rural india.

i had been to one of the regions i intend to adopt for the
pilot, and have found the following needs;
1. land record management,
2. population record management,
3. medical history management,
4. criminal record management,
5. produce transaction management.

how would i be able to apply cobol-85 to bring this to
fruition?
i definitely do not wish to use an 'rdbms', and certainly
cannot afford a mainframe.
is there any mechanism within open-cobol which would
facilitate record management using in-memory datasets,
which i believe are more efficient than approaching the
disk for every request.

hope my questions are on target per the agenda of this list.
else, i apologize for the deviation.

best regards,

~mayuresh