Ken Orr
-- DCI's Year 2000 Issues & Answers Conference

SAN JOSE -- The following are the proceedings from "Surviving the 21st Century" by Ken Orr, a session that occured at DCI's Year 2000 Issues & Answers Conference. Ken is a Principal of The Ken Orr Institute. Mr. Orr is also Executive Consultant for GeneXus Inc. The proceedings are organized by slide header.

• Surviving the 21st Century
  
  
• 1. Now for a Short Interruption
  
  
• 2. How Hard Can This Be?
  
  
• 3. So Let's Automate It?
  
  
• 4. Hey What About Packages and Operating Systems?
  
  
• 5. Hey, What About Hardware?
  
  
• 6. What's the Bottom Line?
  
  
• 7. What can we (should we) do?
  
  
• 8. Conclusion
  
  
• Your Challenge
  
  

Surviving the 21st Century

• Prolog - Flying by Wire
• 1. Now for a short interruption
• 2. How hard can this be?
• 3. O.K. so we’ll automate it!
• 4. Hey, what about Packages & Operating Systems?
• 5. What about Hardware?
• 6. What’s the bottom line?
• 7. What can we (should we) do?
• 8. Conclusion
  

Prolog

• The Fly-by-wire syndrome
• The Management-by-wire problem

The Fly-By-Wire Syndrome

• Over the past three decades, computers have become more and more integrated into modern high-speed aircraft
• This is called “fly-by-wire” in which computers take over more and more of the actual flying
• Today, many advanced aircraft cannot fly without the aid of their computers

The Management-By-Wire Problem

• Over the past three decades, computers have become more and more integrated into the operations of modern enterprises
• This is called “Management-by-wire” in which computers take over more and more of the actual operational control of the business
• Today, most advanced corporations cannot operate without the aid of their computers!
• Over the past three decades, computers have become more and more integrated into the operations of modern enterprises
• This is called “Management-by-wire” in which computers take over more and more of the actual operational control of the business
• Today, most advanced corporations cannot operate without the aid of their computers

1. Now For a Short Interruption

• Dan Ackroyd
  "Imagine a disaster of biblical proportions."
• Mayor
  "Biblical proportions?"
• Bill Murray
  “Biblical proportions! Fire and brimstone, ...
  -dialog from Ghostbusters I
  

2. How hard can this be?

• All you need to do is add two characters to all the date fields and recompile! Right! (problem definition #1)
  

Consider The Size

Most Large Organizations have:

• l000s of Programs
• 1,000,000s of Lines of Code
• 1000s of Screens and Reports
• Dozens of Languages
• Multiple Operating Systems, DBMSs, Application Packages, etc., etc.
• Just Finding all the places Date Fields can exist is a huge problem
  

Thousands of Programs, Millions of lines of code?

For three large customers, one service company reported that their Y2000 projects involved the analysis and modification of
...over 15,000,000 lines of code!

Dozens of Languages?

• 1. COBOL
• 2. Assembler
• 3. FORTRAN
• 4. C
• 5. C++
• 6. FOCUS, SAS
• 7. JCL
• 8. REXX
  ...anyway you get the picture
  

Just Finding all the Date Fields is a big problem

• Data Names are not clear
• Dates are used in calculations
• Dates condition calculations
• Programmers have been very very inventive!
• Nobody’s looked at some of this stuff for years (decades)!

3. So Let’s Automate It!

What we’ll do is buy a package that will scan and replace all of the date fields in our existing code!

There are a few problems:

• Tools don’t exist for all languages

• The tools don’t catch everything

• Then there is the question of the “date routines”!

• Hey, what about the packages?

Automated Tools make the process of converting much easier, however.

• There is still a lot of planning, project management and testing that has to be done

• Blind automation of the process is not likely to catch everything

• Successful Y2000 projects will involve integrating the best of tools and the best of management
  

Then There’s The “Date Routines”

• Date is a universal feature
• Date is used in all sorts of calculations
• Some of the date routines are called “Kevin”

Two Major Problems

Routines that use two digit years often cannot support:

• Calculations/Logic(process)/Sorts(data) that use 4 digit years
• In many cases, routines designed for 2 digit years may consider 00 as an error or null data

4. Hey, what about Packages and Operating Systems?

• We often do not have access to vendor code

• Some of our package vendors have gone out of business

• Some of our packages are for obsolete

  • Operating Systems

  • DBMSs

  • Hardware

Hey, what about Packages? The Good News: Most packages vendors are converting their planned releases to deal with Y2000 The Bad News #1: Many customers are not at current releases of their packages The Bad News #2: We’ve modified our packages so much that it will take a long time to test our changes even after the vendors provide their releases! The Bad News #3: The vendors for lots of packages people are running on have already gone out of business! Hey, what about Operating Systems? The Good News: IBM and Unisys has announced that all of its operating systems will be “Year 2000” compliant shortly The Bad News #1: Lots of people are not at current release levels for their operating systems either The Bad News #2: Other Hardware Vendors are ignoring the problem or coming up with Rube Goldberg solutions 5. Hey, what about hardware? Computer Hardware - Mainframe Computers - PCs Other Hardware - Real-time computers - PBXs - ATMs - Utility Meters - Security Systems - possibility of any embedded system! What do the experts say? The scope of the "millennium" problem on IS is estimated at: 600 billion worldwide (Gartner Group) 200 billion U.S. (Larry Martin, DDI) $40.00 per Function Point (Capers Jones) An enormous application software problem An equally big hardware problem How does the computer (any computer) find the date? Real-time clock Defining the date (and routines) right In order to solve the Y2000 problem, organizations will have to redefine all their date fields utilize at least 4 positions. All of the routines that utilize date will have to be revised to work correctly All of the existing data files will have to be converted Developing a Y2000 Strategy Assumptions: It is too late for most organizations to convert all of their existing systems and/or hardware The cost and availability of resources will become a major problem by 2h 1997 Therefore: It will be necessary to develop strategies that require identifying “true” mission critical systems We will have to find ways around converting everything that we currently have We need to put our very best project managers We need to mobilize not just firms but the whole society! Observation "In the absence of overwhelming problems business inertia will overcome the desire to change!" --Ken Orr, 1995 6. What’s the bottom line? Y2000 is the biggest problem that most systems/software organizations ever tackled We have only about 3 years to solve the problem (Jan 1999 instead of Jan 2000) The personnel and logistics problems will be enormous There is no slipping the project schedule on this one The sooner we get started the better 7. What can we (should we) do? Get management awareness - IS management - Business management - Government and Industry management Determine the scope of our exposure Develop a true inventory - Identify the true "mission critical" applications - Identify the critical "one-of-a-kind" exposures Attach reasonable costs Develop a plan to get started Educate staff and users Get Help 8. Conclusion Predictions Career Planning Parting Shot Predictions Stages: Denial Awareness Panic Triage Litigation Career Planning Good time to be in the software business Become a lawyer A poor time to be a CIO A great time for software/data quality Parting Shot "Remember, the clear advantage of not planning is that disaster comes as a complete surprise!" Your Challenge The Data Processing Industry has the biggest management challenge in the last 50 years There is not enough time or enough people in the Data Processing Industry to adequately solve the Year 2000 problem, therefore... This audience is challenged over the next couple of days to start coming up with imaginative new ways to survive the beginning of the 21st Century