'ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook
ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook
June 5, 1998 Volume 3, No. 22
Published by the Information Technology Association of America, Arlington, VA
Bob Cohen, Editor bcohen@itaa.org
Read in over 70 countries around the world
ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook is sponsored in part by CACI International Inc., DMR
Consulting Group Inc., and Y2Kplus
Feds Fail Horn Test
Noting that government productivity on Year 2000 conversion has actually
declined in the last quarter, Rep. Stephen Horn (R-CA) released his federal
report card and served up an overall "F" for Uncle Sam's efforts. Horn said the
government's rate of progress on bringing mission critical systems into
compliance slipped from 9.4 percent to 7.9 percent in the period ending May 15.
"This would be discouraging in any context," Horn said. "Less than a year
before the March 1999 deadline for Y2K repairs, a reduction in productivity is
deeply troubling. This trend must be reversed."
Six federal agencies received failing marks from the House Subcommittee on
Government Management, Information and Technology, which Horn chairs. The
government's poorest performers are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
the Departments of State, Health and Human Services, Energy, and Transportation
and the Agency for International Development. The Departments of Agriculture,
Defense, Justice and Education received Ds. Top performers are the Social
Security Administration, General Services Administration, Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) and National Science Foundation. Leading backslider
among agencies were the EPA, which fell three grades from a B to an F. Most
improved on the list were FEMA (D- to A-) and Labor (F to C).
A former high ranking government official says agencies now have the history and
timelines they need to make sense of the Y2K issue. "They should have the good
bar graphs to know what it's going to take," he said, adding that agencies not
performing well on the Horn scorecard will in all likelihood have serious
problems. He said the government's progress may be slowed by a variety of
factors, including the fact that as more work is performed, more problems are
discovered. Corrected systems may be becoming re-contaminated by other systems,
adding to the backward momentum. Agencies using rigorous independent
verification and validation processes may also be sending portions of so-called
fixed systems back to the bench for additional remediation, he said.
According to the Horn Subcommittee, of the 7336 mission critical systems in
government, 2766 are not expected to be converted by the Office of Management
and Budget March 1999 deadline. The government's efforts should have been aided
by the disappearance of 356 mission critical systems from the total; the
Subcommittee tallied 7692 such systems last February. Despite this drop in the
number of systems to be fixed, the government still managed to lose ground. Only
62 percent of systems are on track for the March 1999 deadline as opposed to 71
percent in the last report.
Some agencies actually saw their percentage of completed systems go down between
quarters. Education, for instance, slid from 36 to 29 percent done; HHS went
from 38 percent to 34 percent; Justice from 33 percent to 29 percent. Only 11
of 24 government agencies are on track to have their mission critical systems
converted before the rollover. The Horn report card also includes federal
grades for contingency plans, telecommunications systems, embedded systems and
data exchanges (F, D, F and C respectively).
The government is repairing 42 percent of its mission critical systems,
replacing 14 percent and retiring 4 percent. Forty percent are deemed Y2K
compliant. Horn posts the government's Y2K total costs at $4.9 billion.
DoD Official Outlines Testing Framework
Calling on Congress to resist the temptation to craft a legislative fix to the
Year 2000, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre outlined the Department of
Defense (DoD) approach to the issue and asked the lawmakers for the leeway to
use it to solve the problem. Hamre appeared before the Senate Armed Services
Committee and said the Y2K issue ".is not a problem that can be legislated away
or solved by levying new requirements on the DoD or its program managers."
Hamre's testimony focused primarily on the defense agency's Y2K testing and
contingency planning program. In setting the stage for his remarks, he
suggested that the DoD has certain unique and daunting characteristics. "The
Y2K problem is an especially large, complex and insidious threat for the
Department of Defense-an organization roughly the population of metropolitan
Washington, D.C.; the complexity of a small nation; resources to sustain a
global reach; and an information infrastructure that relies heavily on old
legacy computer systems.Moreover, DoD's national security role requires.extra
precautions in allowing access to systems containing classified data and private
sector programmers capable of working on the Y2K problem must be screened."
Interestingly, while Hamre said that the situation "warrants the attention and
leadership of a CEO not just a CIO," he failed to identify a role for Defense
Secretary William Cohen to play. Rather, he spelled out the Y2K responsibility
of the DoD CIO, the special assistant for Y2K, the DoD Y2K Steering Committee,
DoD component heads, and the Y2K Interface Assessment Workshops.
Hamre described DoD testing in terms of systems-centric, functional-centric and
mission-centric perspectives. Functional and mission-centric testing will test
the agency's ability to conduct collaborative programs. Functional testing, he
said, will be based on an "appropriate combination of interoperability and
laboratory testing across Components, Departments, NATO and Allies." Hamre
continued: "Exemplary among collaborative efforts is the systematic and
comprehensive process that the nuclear community is implementing to assess
mission readiness for the Nuclear C3I System of Systems. The process builds on
end-to-end `single string' testing that initially demonstrates interoperability
from sensor to shooter."
Hamre said mission level testing will require the joint community to agree on
how to test end-to-end operational capabilities, continuity of operations
planning and risk areas.
Referring to continuity of operations, Hamre said there are no guarantees that
DoD's systems will be risk free by the century rollover. "Systems whose risks
have been mitigated through renovation and testing could fail, and the failure
of one system could disrupt many others."
The defense department executive provided few details on when functional and
mission tests will be conducted, who would participate in such testing, how test
results would be communicated, or whether re-tests will be scheduled should
initial tests fail.
On a related note, the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee has appended
$1.6 billion to the Administration's FY 1999 budget in emergency funds for Y2K
repairs.
Buildings Stressed by Date Dilemma
The Year 2000 New Year's celebration may mean more than noisy tenants to
landlords and building managers. The Building Owners and Managers Association
(BOMA) has published a guide to help property professionals cope with a building
full of potentially bad dates. The 38-page pamphlet discusses how Y2K problems
may have taken up residence in many buildings and what can be done about it.
Why raise the roof over the issue? Many buildings stand on a foundation of
information systems applications: environmental control, water, power,
telecommunications, lighting, security, fire control and more. The BOMA
booklet notes that systems may misconstrue the scheduled maintenance required
for boilers, chillers or elevators and postpone it-by 100 years. Leases could
be lost, tenant payments miscalculated, entry systems could lock-up,
surveillance cameras could malfunction. Building owners must be concerned
about their own systems, and they should be taking steps to communicate
impacts--if any--on tenant owned systems also.
The booklet provides the outlines of a Year 2000 plan, along with checklists,
sample letters to vendors and tenants, and other resources. BOMA members own
or manage six billion square feet of commercial properties across North America.
The organization is on the web at boma.org.
Small Business Administration Launches Y2K Campaign
The Small Business Administration (SBA) this week launched a Y2K awareness
campaign in a Washington, D.C. press conference that featured Sen. Robert
Bennett (R-UT), Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CN) and Y2K Czar John Koskinen. In a
prepared statement, SBA Administrator Aida Alvarez said, "The collective health
of America's 23 million small businesses is one of our economy's vital signs.
When small business is disrupted to a significant degree, the effects ripple
throughout the economy."
SBA's Y2K campaign will include televised public service announcements and mass
mailings to small business owners.
At the press event, Koskinen defended the Administration's Y2K progress,
suggesting that this week's grades issued by Rep. Stephen Horn were not
representative of the true state of affairs within the agencies. In particular,
Koskinen indicated that the Federal Aviation Administration deserves more credit
for its Y2K efforts.
Also this week, the Senate Small Business Committee held a hearing on the Y2K
impact for small businesses. ITAA President Harris Miller testified before the
Committee, laying out a series of actions necessary by government, international
organizations and major corporations to help small businesses grapple with the
date issue.
"Y2K is like a global hurricane. In this case, we can see the hurricane coming,
and so there should be an emergency response plan in place," Miller said,
calling for government to offer small businesses low interest loans, tax breaks,
and even a Y2K small business corps to offer technical assistance.
Also at the hearing, Sen. Bennett, a member of the Senate Small Business
Committee, referred to a recent study by Wells Fargo Bank that finds 80 percent
of small businesses do not have Y2K contingency plans and, of those, 50 percent
had no plans to create them. According to Bennett, "That is a call to arms."
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