FORUM: RISKS TO PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS & RELATED SYSTEMS
ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: GCCS Military Software fails Year 2000 Test
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 17:15:24 -0700
From: Paul Robinson <foryou@erols.com>
In an article on the front page of the 15 September 1997 {Government Computer News}, it is noted that the Defense Department's Global Command and Control System (GCCS) failed when the date was rolled over to the year 2000. GCCS is used at 500 Department of Defense sites worldwide to provide a comprehensive battlefield operational picture. It replaced an older system in August 1996.
The test was done on 1 Aug 1997 during the Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID), which is used to show off emerging technologies for use in Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) operations. Eight countries, including Canada (which has purchased GCCS for evaluation purposes), are participants in JWID.
There are 28 tests used, including setting the date and time close to midnight on 31 Dec 1999 and letting the clock roll over, as well as for 28 Feb 2000 and 2001. In 10 of the 28 demonstrations, software expired or machines froze. One system failed to recognize that there is a 29 Feb 2000. Another had to be rebooted and had erased every user account. The failure is believed to be due to the underlying operating system. GCCS, current version 2.2, runs on Solaris 2.5.1, Windows NT, and HP-UX 9.0.7 and 9.0.10. It is said that systems running on Solaris 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 are not year-2000 compliant. The Hewlett-Packard Unix systems are said to be compliant and passed the test. According to Lt. Cmdr. Mark Harvey, technical director at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) for the JWID program, "So anything that was running on HP Unix worked. Anything that had Solaris did not." JWID rejected claims that their software was at fault, stating that the problem is claimed to be on Solaris versions 2.5 and below.
Sun questions whether the application is at fault. John Leahy, government markets manager for Sun Microsystems Federal pointed out that "Even if the operating system is year 2000 compliant, that doesn't automatically mean the applications that run on it are." He also said the problem is surmountable if the latest release - Solaris 2.6, which has year 2000 support - is used.
But DISA plans to use Solaris 2.5 for GCCS Version 3.0 to be released in January 1998.
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