no matter where it is or how small.

how long can such a satellite stay up there?

It seems Broadcom have been difficult to customers and potential buyers ever since taking over VMware. I couldn't even download VMWare workstation from the Broadcom website. So many other VM options on the market.

hear hear. Networking bridging is a problem. I use Ubuntu and the network configuration conflicts with netplan.

I think the Wizardry game used it?

I've been involved with ERP systems developed in COBOL in the past. To rewrite everything from COBOL to Java "in months" would be a risky mistake. It will take years of careful development and testing side-by-side with the existing COBOL system. It will most likely need middleware until the system is completely converted over to a Java system.