Anyone know the approximate percentage of large systems in this country that have been both remediated and implemented?

-- Bill Byars (billbyars@softwaresmith.com), December 06, 1999

Answers

Billy B,I received and e-mail from a friend regarding the banking system. At a y2k seminar in mid-November a bank offical that works at one of the largest banks in her state commented, every bank employee has been instructed to answer all public inquires by saying "Yes, our bank is y2k compliant". Any employee who answered otherwise would be fired. Their bank had already conducted two y2k test on their computer systems. BOTH TESTS failed completely--shut down! So in spite of the public assurances that this huge bank is ready for y2k, they are plainly LYING to the public. I hope this sheds some light on your question.

-- Mary T. (marytower@webtv.net), December 06, 1999.

So... why not say which bank it is?

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), December 06, 1999.

She can't or won't say which bank it is because either it is a totally fabricated story, urban myth or information that was received from a friend of a friend's babysitter's next door neighbours bosses wifes last husbands goldfishes next to best friend.

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), December 06, 1999.

Well....golly jeepers! And THAT bank would be? Not allowed to tell? Oh, I thought not.

-- Birdlady (Birdlady@nest.net), December 06, 1999.

Actually, this is an excellent question. You see, as systems are remediated, the work is typically done in in a development environment. If it is done in a production environment you run the risk of messing up live data.

Anyway, the test/development environment should be a mirror of the production environment. This is not always the case, and when it isn't, there is a risk that once code is moved into the production environment it could fail because of inconsistencies with the test environment.

If the environments are perfectly mirrored, testing should reflect what will actually happen. Unfortunately, many times the test environment creates a "miniature" environment.

What does that mean? For high-volume, transactional enviroments (such as the banking industry), there are combinations of things that can take place which just can't be fully tested. Thus, when going live, bugs are experienced.

I'm working with one company right now that just moved the remediated payroll into production on November 15. So far it's working just fine. This did cut it close, however, and the client knew it. (They have a full outsourcing contingency ready as well.

My guess is that as we speak, there are many companies dealing with bugs of recently implemented replancement and remediated systems. We'll continue to hear about the problems associated with them.

As someone else here said recently, we are currently operating in a BITR environment.

So back to the original question....It's an important question, without a doubt!

-- Duke 1983 (Duke1983@AOL.com), December 07, 1999.