to AXiS Home Page
Year 2000 Focus
Group
This meeting was part of the AXiS Autumn Conference at York University which took place from 30th September to 2nd October 1997. The format was varied so that the regular informal discussion session took place on Tuesday evening in parallel with the Storage and Automation and the Capacity Management Focus Groups. The formal sessions took place within the Strategic Issues stream of the main conference on wednesday morning.
John Evans, Chairman of the AXiS year 2000 Focus Group, facilitated the discussion session. He took soundings of members' progress to date. Six member sites had not yet started to manage their Year 2000 requirements. A few felt that they are now in control. Portman Building Society and EDS(Social Security Division) have targeted to complete their Y2K programme by November 1998. Very few members had needed to use external resources so far, eg such as recruiting additional programmers. The discussion centred on:
Requirements for additional capacity
Some members expected to need additional processing capacity to undertake testing. Providers of disaster recovery services are one source of capacity but it was mentioned that the services of one popular provider, Guardian, are heavily booked. SEMA Group have just launched a disaster recovery company, SGRS, at Nantwich offering competitive rates for service on bottom of the range SX and 3980 systems. Carol Lewis (EDS) said that her company would consider offering spare capacity if there is enough interest. Any enquiry should be addressed directly to Carol on: 01253 689698
Year 2000 Enabling Package
Five member organisations represented at the meeting have taken the package. It is working well at the AA.
PCs
This remains a fuzzy issue with conflicting reports as to extent and nature of potential problems. It is felt that many companies will have replaced their existing PCs before 2000 but surely there will be a large number of companies whose policy it is to pass older PCs around the organisation. They may not be able to afford so swap out every single system.
Testing
Emulation and simulation are popular ways to check an organisation's ability to transit safely beyond 2000. ICL through Dateproof 2000 service can assist with Netsim to facilitate ageing of data. Compuware offer a number of tools to simulate a post-2000 situation. File-AID/Data Ager increments, decerements, or replaces dates in files. XPEDITER/Xchange enables testers to control and modify system dates that are passed to applications. QAHiperstation will capture input across multiple terminals and applications, store the information in scripts and consistently replay the transactions with simulated date inputs. More information about Compuware is available from their web site: http://www.compuware.com/yr2000
Compliance
Members were reminded that the Focus Group maintains a compliance database. The Secretary will be updating the records so that the latest information can be printed for circulation at the next Focus Group meeting(in December). If you have any feedback from your supplier about product compliance please let the Secretary know so that the database may be kept up to date. Contact Don Folland : don@amsunews.demon.co.uk
2. Practicalities of Year 2000 Management on VME Systems
This, the first of two formal Year 2000 sessions in the AXiS conference, was presented by Peter Iles and John Morris-Best from ICL. John reviewed ICL's Year 2000 services which support not only customer needs but ICL's own internal Year 2000 requirements. A Task Force has been checking on the compliance of suppliers' products and the resulting information is being input to a database. The Dateproof 2000 services provide the Enabling Kit which should be considered a 'must' for VME users by the year 1999. Software and Validation Service Centres exist at West Gorton to provide analysis services to check COBOL, DDS and SCL code. Customers can use the Validation Service either on-site at West Gorton or online via modem or ISDN connection.
Peter Iles provided his regular product status update. TB023 issue 8 is the most recent Product Status report. There are updates to the Facilities Guide in draft at present. They will be published in the near future via Technical Bulletins and on the ICL web site [http://www.icl.co.uk/year2000]
Another Technical Bulletin made available is TB034 Issue 1 : Year 2000 Tips. This provides VME and OpenVME users with tips that might help with Year 2000 developments on these systems. They derive from queries raised by customers or from suggestions from within ICL. Topics covered include - Installing the Year 2000 Enabling Kit, Switching on/off Century Windowing, using Virtual Datezone and using COBOL ACCEPT from DATE within a Virtual Date Environment. The tips help to point up pitfalls for the unwary.
3. Year 2000 : 822 days to go - are you ready?
This conference session was presented by Chris Bewick from the Automobile Association and John Evans from Oxford City Council. Chris spoke at last year's conference and was welcomed back this year for a report on how his Year 2000 programme is shaping. The AA was an early user of ICL's Enabling Kit which has proved a valuable tool. They are beginning to look at their suppliers and trading partners to check on their progress. They are also evaluating and resolving non-IT and chip-based facilities.
The AA completed a mainframe pilot exercise in July and were pleased to find how close the result was to their estimate for overall resource requirement. At the initial stage it was predicted that 1146 components would need attention at a resource cost of 3.3 man years. After evaluation and eliminating components now obsolete or not used in live operation the number of components was reduced to 596 and the cost to 2.2 man years. Then came detailed analysis reducing the target further to 49 components and 1.42 man years.
Chris Bewick reported on a number of issues and concerns arising from the AA's use of Century Inferencing and Virtual Dates.
John Evans decided to give delegates his personal view of Year 2000 issues rather than report on experience at Oxford City Council. He touched on several sensitive subjects and offered some controversial thoughts. Y2K projects leaders are valuable people. They risk being the scapegoat if things don't go well. They may be too valuable in the job they are doing to be promoted. They may get tempting offers to move to other sites. The remedy, suggested John, is to pay them well and give them plenty of support.
4. Next Meeting
This is planned to take place on Thursday 4th December 1997 at Corporation of London