Y2k Computer Problem Essay, Research Paper

The twelvemonth 2000 is merely around the corner. As some people look frontward to a new and brighter millenium, others prophesize about the Second Coming, or the apocalypse. While these prognostications may be ignored by many, they might non be excessively far off base. The twelvemonth 2000 may non convey an terminal to the physical universe ; nevertheless, it may do great mayhem to the universe & # 8217 ; s calculating industry.

The twelvemonth 2000 job ( or & # 8220 ; Y2K & # 8221 ; as it is frequently referred to ) is non truly a & # 8220 ; bug & # 8221 ; or & # 8220 ; virus, & # 8221 ; but is a computing machine industry error. Personal computing machines ( Personal computers ) , mainframes, and package are non designed or programmed to calculate a future twelvemonth stoping in dual nothing ( & # 8220 ; 00 & # 8221 ; ) . This is traveling to be a dearly-won & # 8220 ; fix & # 8221 ; for the industry to absorb. In fact, Mike Elgan, editor of Windows Magazine, says, & # 8221 ; . . . the job could be concerns a sum of $ 600 billion to rectify & # 8221 ; ( Experts Elgan ) .

Y2k has become a bipartite job. One is the inability of the computing machine to accommodate to the MM/DD/YY issue, while the 2nd job is the involuntariness of many people to see the impact it will hold. Most IS ( information system ) specializers are either unconcerned or unprepared.

In order to repair the twelvemonth 2000 computing machine job and its impact, one must to the full understand what this job is. Back in the 1960 & # 8217 ; s, coders decided to hive away the twelvemonth of day of the months as two figures alternatively of four in order to salvage much needed infinite and cut costs. So the twelvemonth & # 8220 ; 1998 & # 8221 ; would be stored as & # 8220 ; 98 & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; 2000 & # 8221 ; will be stored as & # 8220 ; 00. & # 8221 ; These two-digit day of the months will be on 1000000s of files used as input for 1000000s of applications. This two-digit day of the month affects informations use, chiefly minuss and comparings ( Doomsday Jager ) . For case, Joe was born in 1957. If the computing machine was asked to cipher how old Joe is today, it subtracts 57 from 98 and studies that he is 41. This computation is right. In the twelvemonth 2000 nevertheless, the computing machine will deduct 57 from 00 and state that he is -57 old ages old.

Many proprietors of place computing machines feel this & # 8220 ; bug & # 8221 ; won & # 8217 ; t affect their personal computing machine but it & # 8217 ; s expected that up to 80 % of all personal PC & # 8217 ; s will neglect when the twelvemonth 2000 arrives. More than 80,000,000 PC & # 8217 ; s will be shut down December 31, 1999 with no jobs as workers leave their office for the weekend. However, on January 1, 2000, some 80,000,000 Personal computers will neglect as systems are turned on and & # 8220 ; booted up & # 8221 ; ( Believe Jager ) .

Repairing the job seems to be hard a hard undertaking, as all applications from spreadsheets to e-mail will be affected. Should an single replace his current computing machine with one that is Year 2000 compatible or merely replace the RTC ( Real Time Clock ) , the BIOS, or the OS? Even if the hardware job is fixed is all the package used may non be equal to do the passage.

The replies to these inquiries and others like these can non be answered with a simple & # 8220 ; yes & # 8221 ; or & # 8220 ; no. & # 8221 ; For one thing, the & # 8220 ; taking experts & # 8221 ; in the computing machine universe can non hold that there is even a job, allow entirely discourse the extent to which it will impact society and the concern universe. CNN letter writer Jed Duvall illustrates another possible & # 8220 ; job & # 8221 ; scenario. Suppose person on the East Coast, at 2 proceedingss after midnight in New York City on January 1, 2000 decides to do a call to a friend in California, where it is still 1999 because of the clip zone difference. With the current constellations in the phone company & # 8217 ; s computing machines, the New Yorker will be billed from & # 8216 ; 00 to & # 8216 ; 99, a phone call lasting for 99 old ages ( Duvall ) .

State a sedimentation of $ 100 was made into a nest eggs account that pays 5 % involvement yearly. The undermentioned twelvemonth the depositor decides to shut the history. The bank computing machine figures the $ 100 was at that place for one twelvemonth at 5 % involvement, giving $ 105, simple plenty. What happens though, if the money is non withdrawn before the twelvemonth 2000? The computing machine will re-do the computation precisely the same manner. The money was in the bank from & # 8216 ; 95 to & # 8216 ; 00. That & # 8217 ; s & # 8216 ; 00 subtraction & # 8216 ; 95, which equals a negative 95 ( -95 ) . That & # 8217 ; s -95 old ages at 5 % involvement. That is a small spot more than $ 10,000, and because of the subtraction mark, it is traveling to deduct that sum from the history. The depositor now owes the bank $ 9,900.

No industry is immune to this job ; it is a cross-platform job. This is a job that will impact personal computing machines, minicomputers, and mainframe computing machines. A system that is devised to cut an one-year federal shortage to & # 8220 ; 0 & # 8221 ; by the twelvemonth 2002 is already in & # 8220 ; hot water. & # 8221 ; Data entered into the plan will be miscalculated, ensuing in inaccurate Numberss as they & # 8220 ; merely won & # 8217 ; t add up. & # 8221 ; Public wellness information and surveillance at all degrees of local, province, federal, and international public wellness, which are dependent upon day of the months for epidemiological ( survey of disease happening, location, and continuance ) and wellness statistics grounds, are besides marks of Y2K. Since day of the month of events, continuance between events, and other computations such as age of people are core epidemiological and wellness statistic demands, this field may endure great harm ( Seligman ) . In add-on to this, public wellness governments are normally dependent upon the primary informations suppliers such as physician patterns, research labs, infirmaries, managed attention organisations, and outpatient centres etc. , as the beginning for original informations upon which public wellness determinations are based. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for illustration, maintains over 100 public wellness surveillance systems all of which are dependent upon external beginnings of informations ( Issa ) . This fundamentally means that it is non traveling to be sufficient to do the internal systems compliant to the twelvemonth 2000 in order to turn to all of the inside informations of this issue. See the following scenario: in April, 2000, a infirmary sends an electronic surveillance record to the local or province wellness section describing the decease of an person who was born in the twelvemonth & # 8220 ; 00 & # 8243 ; ; is this traveling to be a instance of infant mortality or decease from old age?

Contraire to many beliefs, there are no & # 8220 ; quick repair & # 8221 ; or what everyone refers to as the & # 8220 ; Silver Bullet. & # 8221 ; The Silver Bullet is the nomenclature used to stand for the creative activity of an automatic hole for the Y2K job. There are two major jobs with this theory. First, there are excessively many fluctuations from hardware to package of different types to believe that a & # 8220 ; repair all & # 8221 ; solution can be found. Tools such as clock simulators can run a system with a fake clock day of the month and can utilize applications that append or produce mistakes when the twelvemonth 2000 arrives ; while day of the month finders search across applications on specific day of the month standards, and browsers can assist users execute big volume codification review. However, every bit good as all these & # 8220 ; automated tools & # 8221 ; are, there are no & # 8220 ; Silver Bullets & # 8221 ; or quick holes. It will take antique work hours by forces in order to do this passage smooth and efficient.

Second, the general population, by believing that there is such a & # 8220 ; fix & # 8221 ; or that one can be created instead rapidly and easy, is making state of affairss where people are seting off turn toing the job due to the trust of the & # 8220 ; cure-all & # 8221 ; . The & # 8220 ; certain person will repair it & # 8221 ; type attitude fills the industry and the population, doing this job more serious than it already is ( Believe Jager ) . Peoples really think that a plan will get down running on Friday dark and repair the Y2K job by the clip Monday forenoon comes about. Cipher has to make anything else, the job poses no more menace, and it has been solved. To cite Peter Jager, who is recognized internationally as the leader in Year 2000 consciousness:

Such a tool would be fantastic. Suc

h a tool would be deserving one million millions of dollars. Such a tool, is a naif pipe dream. Could person come near? Not really … Could something cut down this job by 90 % ? I don’t believe so. Could it cut down the job by 50 % ? Possibly … but I still don’t believe so. Could it cut down the work load by 30 % ? Quite likely. ( Biting Jager )

How will this affect society and the industry in 2000? How stable will package design companies be as more and more rivals offer immense & # 8220 ; incentives & # 8221 ; for people to go forth their current occupations and travel work for another company on their jobs? As more and more concerns decide to face this job, the demand for computing machine coders is expected to skyrocket. Recruitment will be at an all clip high. Some estimations report that coders, particularly those experienced in the COBOL scheduling linguistic communication, are expected to do between $ 150,000 and $ 200,000 a twelvemonth for their cognition in battling Y2K. Some experts even feel that IS specializers will be able to call their monetary value, as companies will pay any monetary value to maintain their concern afloat. Competition will be ferocious as the race to market a solution to battle Y2K continues. Liability issues may originate if a company withdraws an offer on a trade because of a computing machine bug. Predictions say that the stock market will worsen 40 % in 1998-99 as concerns over the viability of the banking system and the ability of authoritiess to present basic services will panic investors. In add-on, the U.S. income revenue enhancement system will be simplified with a signifier of level revenue enhancement because IRS computing machines will non be functional in 2000, doing alterations in the revenue enhancement codification ( Westergaard ) . This is a broad spread scenario because the Y2K job will impact all these elements and more.

Due to society & # 8217 ; s dependance on computing machines, the failure of the systems to run right can intend anything from minor incommodiousnesss to major calamities. These include licences and permits non issued, paysheet and societal service cheques non cut, forces, medical and academic records misfunctioning, mistakes in banking and finance, accounts non paid or received, stock list non maintained, weapon systems misfunctioning ; the list goes on. It is extremely improbable that an person will be unaffected by Y2K. The Gartner Group, a merchandise development company focused on mid-level engineering applications, has made the undermentioned estimations: At $ 450 to $ 600 per affected computing machine plan, it is estimated that a medium size company will pass from $ 3.6 to $ 4.2 million to do the package transition. The cost per line of codification is estimated to be $ .80 to $ 1. Viasoft, which helps Fortune 1000 and likewise sized organisations worldwide understand, manage and develop the package applications that run their concerns, has seen plan transition cost rise to $ 572 to $ 1,204. Andersen Consulting, a planetary direction and engineering consulting organisation, estimates that it will take them more than 12,000 working yearss to rectify its bing applications. Estimates for the rectification of this job in the United States entirely is around $ 50 to $ 75 billion ( ITAA ) .

Is it possible to extinguish the job? Probably non, but the passage can be made much drum sander with cooperation and the right attack. Companies and authorities bureaus must understand the nature of the job. Ignoring the obvious is non the manner to near this job. To presume that the job will be corrected when the system is replaced is a opinion that may be companies a batch of money. Correcting the state of affairs may non be so hard as it will be clip devouring. For case, the Social Security Administration estimates that it will pass & # 8220 ; 300 man-years determination and rectifying these day of the month mentions in their information systems & # 8211 ; systems stand foring a sum of 30 million lines of codification & # 8221 ; ( ITAA ) .

One of the largest package fabrication corporations, Microsoft, is really cognizant of its client concerns with MS merchandises. They claim they have been believing about the twelvemonth 2000 job since twenty-four hours one. They claim with the initial MS-DOS operating system, Microsoft incorporated the capableness to manage day of the months good into the following century. Microsoft say Windows 95 and Windows NT are capable of back uping day of the months up until the twelvemonth 2099, and urge upgrading all Microsoft merchandises to at least the 1997 releases. Microsoft farther provinces that its development tools and database direction systems provide the flexibleness for the user to stand for day of the months in many different ways ( Microsoft ) . Proper preparation of developers to utilize day of the month formats that accommodate the passage to the twelvemonth 2000 is really of import.

So is everyone affected? Apparently non. After a brief treatment with a technician of EZL DOT COM, an Internet-Access supplier based in Edwardsville, I found out that they are thirstily expecting the reaching of the twelvemonth 2000. They had plenty foresight to do certain that when they purchased their equipment and related package, that it would wholly be twelvemonth 2000 compliant. This company shows that this & # 8220 ; bug & # 8221 ; can be beaten. The key is to go informed and to remain informed. Affect the alterations you can now, and look to rectify those that you can non. The twelvemonth 2000 will be a roller coaster for many concerns, but EZL DOT COM seem to hold it under control and are keeping party chapeaus in one manus and the mouse in the other.

As is evidently clear from the information presented, Y2K is a job to be taken earnestly. The broad scope of systems ( OS ) and package on the market lead many to believe the thought that a & # 8220 ; silver bullet & # 8221 ; hole will bring around this & # 8220 ; media hyped catastrophe. & # 8221 ; This is non nevertheless, a hopeless job. Proper preparation and design is needed, every bit good as legion man-hours to consequence the & # 8220 ; repairs & # 8221 ; needed to get the better of the jobs that will doubtless happen if no action is taken. The & # 8220 ; sit back and delay for a cure-all & # 8221 ; attack will non work. Action should hold been taken 10 old ages ago. Whatever may go on, January 1, 2000 will be an interesting clip full of concerns and reverses for some and a alleviation for others. Hopefully the necessary & # 8220 ; repairs & # 8221 ; will be made and the word will be passed on to the others who may be taking this a small excessively lightly. It may non be a affair of life or decease, but it certainly could intend your occupation and fiscal hereafter.

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