Y2k Essay, Research Paper

The Millennium Bug: The Problem of the Century Two apparently little figures may turn January 1, 2000 from a worldwidecelebration into a cosmopolitan incubus. With computing machines misidentifying the twelvemonth 2000 for 1900, virtually all concerns that use day of the months will be affected. Not merely will the companies beaffected, but they are paying 1000000s upon 1000000s of dollars in order for computing machines torecognize the difference between the old ages 2000 and 1900. The twelvemonth 2000 computing machine bug isa composite job that our universe must confront. In order to explicate how to work out the & # 8220 ; millenary bug & # 8221 ; , it is a good thought to beinformed approximately precisely what the twelvemonth 2000 job is. The twelvemonth 2000 industry expert, Peter de Jager, described the job rather good. & # 8220 ; We programmed computing machines to hive away thedate in the undermentioned format: dd/mm/yy. This lone allows 2 figures for the twelvemonth. January 1,2000 would be stored as 01/01/00. But the computing machine will construe this as January 1,1900- non 2000 & # 8243 ; ( de Jager 1 ) . The & # 8216 ; 19 & # 8242 ; is & # 8220 ; hard-coded & # 8221 ; into computing machine hardware andsoftware. Since there are merely 2 physical infinites for the twelvemonth in this day of the month format, after & # 8216 ; 99 & # 8242 ; , the lone logical pick is to reset the figure to & # 8216 ; 00 & # 8242 ; . The twelvemonth 2000 job is unlike any other job in modern history. WilliamAdams points out some of the most of import grounds why. & # 8220 ; Time is running out- theYear 2000 is inevitable! The job will happen at the same time worldwide, clip zoneswithstanding. It affects all linguistic communications and platforms, hardware & A ; package. The demand forsolutions will transcend the supply. Survivors will last large, also-rans will lose large. There isno & # 8217 ; silver bullet & # 8217 ; that is traveling to repair things & # 8221 ; ( Adams 2 ) . & # 8220 ; It is excessively large and excessively overwhelmingeven for [ Bill Gates and ] Microsoft & # 8221 ; ( Widder 3 ) . Separate, any one of these points makesY2K, a common abbreviation for the twelvemonth 2000 job, an add-on to the obstacle.Combined, they form what seems more like a horrid monster than an undistinguished bug. Y2K has an tremendous on society, conveying the largest companies in the universe totheir articulatio genuss, pleading for a solution at about any cost. & # 8220 ; The modern universe has come todepend on information every bit much as it has on electricity and running H2O. Repairing theproblem is hard because there are [ less than ] two old ages left to rectify 40 old ages ofbehavior & # 8221 ; ( de Jager 1 ) . Alan Greenspan has warned that being 99 per centum ready International Relations and Security Network & # 8217 ; tenough ( Widder 2 ) . Chief Economist Edward Yardeni has said that the opportunities for aworldwide recession to happen because of Y2K are at 40 % ( Widder 3 ) . Senator Bob Benett ( Republican, Utah ) made a good analogy about the potency of the job. & # 8220 ; In the1970 & # 8217 ; s, oil was the energy that ran our universe economic system. Today it runs on the energy ofinformation. & # 8221 ; He subsequently said, & # 8220 ; To stultify the technological flow of information throughoutthe universe is to convey it to a practical deadlock & # 8221 ; ( Widder 3 ) . The potency of the job in mundane life is dismaying. Imagine doing a loanpayment in 1999 for a measure that is due in 2000. The company s computing machines could interpretthe & # 8216 ; 00 & # 8242 ; as 1900 and you would so be charged with 99 old ages of late fees ( Moffitt & A ; Sandler 48 ) . If the twelvemonth 2000 job International Relations and Security Network & # 8217 ; t solved, there could be & # 8220 ; no air traffic, trafficlights, no visible radiations in your company, companies could non bring forth goods, no goods deliveredto the shops, shops could non direct you measures, you could non direct measures to anyone else.Business [ could ] come to a arrest & # 8221 ; ( de Jager 1 ) . The costs of repairing Y2K are reeling. The Gartner Group estimates that costsper line of codification to be between $ 1.50 and $ 2.00 ( Conner 1 ) . It is non uncommon for asingle company to hold 100,000,000 lines of codification ( de Jager 6 ) . Capers Jones, an expertwho has studied package costs for over 10 old ages, estimates entire worldwide costs to be $ 1,635,000,000,000 ( One-trillion, 635 billion dollars ) ( Jones 58 ) . To set this figure intoperspective, if five people were to pass $ 100 for every second of every twenty-four hours, 24 hours aday, 365 yearss a twelvemonth, it would take them about 100 old ages to complete the undertaking! The twelvemonth 2000 job is non merely limited to what happens with computersbetween December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000. There are several other of import datesthat are a factor. Last October was considered the last point where a big company couldstart repairing the job with any hopes to complete before the deadline ( DBA 1 ) . Besides, allfixes should be done by January 1, 1999. There are two major grounds for holding the fixesdone a twelvemonth early. The first is that there are many & # 8220 ; particular day of the months & # 8221 ; during 1999 that meanspecial things. For illustration, September 9, 1999 ( 09/09/99 ) has been normally used asthe & # 8220 ; termination day of the month & # 8221 ; for mentions and informations that have no termination day of the month ( Reid 6 ) . Thecomputer required that a day of the month must be entered in, and in many instances, 9/9/99 was it. Besides, it has been established that an full twelvemonth & # 8217 ; s rhythm of events should be used to prove all of themodifications that have been made to a system. Besides, one should be certain to prove to seewhich twenty-four hours of the hebdomad is 01/01/00. January 1, 1900 was a Monday, but January 1, 2000will be a Saturday. Other possible failure day of the months: 1/10/2000 ( 1st 9 character day of the month ) ,2/29/2000 ( Leap day- the twelvemonth 2000 is a leap twelvemonth ) , 10/10/2000 ( 1st 10 character day of the month ) , and 12-31-2000 ( Day 366 of the twelvemonth 2000 ) ( Martin 15 ) ( GTE Appendix A ) . With the millenary & # 8220 ; bug & # 8221 ; coming closer and closer to destructing the & # 8220 ; harvests & # 8221 ; ofthe universe & # 8217 ; s information every twenty-four hours, experts from around the Earth have discovered severalways to cover with or & # 8220 ; exterminate & # 8221 ; this threat. Five major solutions to the job willnow be discussed. The most straightforward attack to work outing Y2K is to merely alter the 2-digitdate Fieldss to 4-digit 1s. This is considered to be the lone complete solution to theproblem, giving concerns a apparently eternal scope of day of the months for the hereafter. Thisapproach besides can do it much easier for the company to reformat the show screenswith a hard-coded format nowadays ( IBM 5.2 ) . Unfortunately, spread outing the day of the month field from 2 to 4 figures has several downsides toit. The most obvious one is that in order to change over the day of the months, every plan and databasethat mentions to day of the month informations will hold to be modified. These alterations are mostlymanual labor- non an automatic procedure. Besides, this requires show screens to be

reformatted manually, every bit good as increasing record lengths in databases ( IBM 5.2 ) . Anoth

er common method for swatting the millennium bug involves what is termed”date logic”, or “windowing techniques.”(IBM5.2) This procedure involves having aseparate program to determine which millennium certain dates are in. For example, theprogram could determine that if the year ends in numbers between 00 and 20, the date is inthe second millennium. If the year ends in 21 to 99, the date is in the first millennium. Thistechnique avoids some of the massive changes and coordination associated with theexpansion approach (Martin 5). However, there exists problems with date logic routines. The most important oneis that the “time window” (IBM5.5) can never be more than 100 years, and the length ofthe time window cannot change in the future. Also, system performance may slow downwith this extra step for each date to be processed. On top of that, all of the assumptionsand logic must be the same for all of the programs that will use it (IBM 5.7). If and only ifall three of these downsides to windowing techniques are able to be overcome, should abusiness consider this solution. Another way of getting around 2-digit dates involves a bridge program. This typeof solution is used to convert data from one record format to another. This allows asystem to convert 2-digit to 4-digit dates as they are needed. This also allows a business tohave very little down time for year 2000 renovations. Instead of converting all of the dataat one time, it is instead converted gradually. Also, this technique is very cost effective andfairly easy to do (Moffitt & Sandler 5.8). Be aware that a bridge program has the potentialto ruin a computer system. By removing the bridge before all data has been converted, 2-digit dates may become mixed with 4-digit dates, creating a larger problem than in thebeginning. Replacing the systems is probably the most straightforward method of solvingY2K. By simply discarding old, non-compliant systems and purchasing new systems thatare year 2000 ready, a business can eliminate the year 2000 problem altogether (Martin 6).This avoids the hassle of coming up with solutions to the problem, but presents thedifficulties of starting from scratch. This solution should be considered if a company ssystems are too costly to fix, or if there are not very many systems that need to be fixed.Another idea that incorporates the replacement idea is for one company to merge with orbuy another company that has Y2K compliant systems. Then, the old systems can beretired (Martin 6). The last alternative that will be discussed is to do nothing to current computersystems that a business may use. This is not the same as ignoring the millennium bug andhoping that it will go away. Instead, it involves analyzing exactly what will happen to acompany s computer systems and determining that the effect it will have is either none orvery little (Martin 6). If this would be the case, and employees could work around anydamages that may be caused, this selection could work. Carrying out a solution in any business involves careful planning in order to besuccessful. Each of the four steps- awareness, planning, implementation, and testing- arecrucial for a company to successfully get beyond the year 2000.Though the shortest step,the awareness step can be considered to be the most important step. This involves adetailed description of the problem to CEO s and the other decision makers for thecompany. Also, the management must be informed of the impact that Y2K will have if notsolved. Without successfully informing the company executives of the millennium bug,there is no hope of getting funding appropriated and fixes underway (Conner 2). The preparation and planning phase involves finding all applications that use datesand choosing the right combination of solutions to result in a successful endeavor. Also, abusiness must consider any dependencies on outside systems- other companies, forexample. In addition to this, a “priority schedule” should be created, to determine whichsystems are absolutely necessary to the operation of the business, and to fix them inaccordance to their importance (Conner 2). A standard date interface should be agreedupon both within the company and with all other companies which are relied on. Also, thefirst estimate of how costly and how prolonged the fixes should be done (Conner 2). The implementation phase is probably the most tedious phase of year 2000compliance. This involves taking proposed solutions and incorporating them into abusiness computer systems. Depending on which solutions are chosen, and how thesolutions affect everyday business, a company s commerce could be crippled due to theneed for various systems to be down at all times (Moffitt & Sandler 66). In addition, testing the solutions may be seen as an unimportant phase in theconversion process. The rewards seem few, and the costs of are high. However, testingsolutions is the only way to ensure that a business will flow smoothly into the 21stcentury. This procedure involves making sample databases and records to verify that thefixes were made correctly, and that all systems work correctly. During this phase, a fewglitches will most likely be found, and correcting these will be relatively easy. There aretwo common approaches to testing the solutions. The first involves making sure thesystems work correctly in the 20th century, testing the computers for the 21st century, andthen putting the systems back into everyday use. This method has the advantage ofallowing quicker feedback, since all the tests are done at the same time. However, theamount of down time will be fairly high. The other approach reverses the testing order byputting the systems back into production at the beginning of the procedure. Next, testingfor year 2000 compliance is performed while the flow of business continues. This reducesdowntime, although the results will take longer. (Pollner 2-3). As the year 2000 approaches, companies are losing precious time left to swat themillennium bug. The deadline is fixed. The price of survival is high and the only reward isthe hope of continued operation in the worlds of commerce and industry. As a result,businesses that continue into the next millennium will enjoy the happiness of existence.Companies that fail to act now will probably crumble under their own weight. “Thealternative to addressing the year 2000 will be going out of business” (Moffitt & Sandler3).