Since the whole "race to the finish line" of Jan 1, 2000 was to fix the so-called "mission critical" systems, one naturally would assume that everyone will next tackle the systems that are useful but not absolutely critical. In view of the fact that (at least so far) it does not seem to MATTER whether systems were Y2K remediated or not -- fix-on-failure seems to work fine for everyone (e.g., countries like Italy) -- do computer professionals see the need to do full-blown Y2K remediation/testing on the remaining systems?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), January 05, 2000

Answers

Yes, if I had not remediated it, I wouldn't be able to play solitare any more...

On a more serious note, non-mission critical systems do perform a valuable function...usually making less work for the user. If they fail, more work will need to be done, perhaps requiring more staff with attendent costs.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 05, 2000.

I would figure that such remediation will be relegated to "fill-in" work (which means it may or may not ever get done, depending on how loud the user screams).

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), January 05, 2000.

Best guess...they will wait ONE month. If nothing horrible happens, they will turn off the obviously unnecessary systems and FIRE EVERYBODY!!!

The American Way of Business!!

-- K. Stevens (K. Stevens@ It ALL went away five days ago .com), January 05, 2000.

There's mud at the Gazebo.

-- LunaC (LunaC@moon.com), January 05, 2000.

It all depends on how "Non-mission" critical status was determined. As I've said before, to an IT manager, y2k compliant can be a very flexible term ... same with "mission critical"

-- brent (me@overhere.net), January 05, 2000.

The answer is: fix the mission critical systems and b.s. the other systems into thinking they are fixed. However, this tactic is employed only to buy time until someone smart (and who has the time) can actually fix it. Or it won't be fixed until the systems fail due to age or some other malfunction. Then they would be replaced (one would think).

A prime example of a system using this strategy is the FAA.

-- Marie (pray4peace@compuserve.com), January 05, 2000.

At our shop we examined and fixed the non-critical systems last. Our goal was to have all systems Y2K ready. Non-critical doesn't mean not important to us. The terminology (critical/non-critical) may be misleading?

In our shop, critical systems must be available all the time. Can't afford to have these down. Non-critical are systems we can allow to be down (amount of time depends on system). Sort of a triage and the designation determines what gets fixed first if there's a problem.

-- Chris Josephson (chrisj62954@aol.com), January 06, 2000.

20000106 Thursday

KoS:

In 1997, the BOARD/MANAGEMENT responsible for a mortgage company client had arbitrarily approved "fixing"--per budget--"40%" of their (date-driven!) systems for date-dollar(!) computation (Y2K) flaws.

While they admitted that the "40%" was an ambiguous figure, they estimated that the other 60% represented a potential employment- consequence impact to "only 40%" of their (IOW, dispensable) staff employees. (Isn't "Management Math" amazing?)

On the other hand (OTOH), they also admitted there was a great deal of RISK in assuming that they COULD correctly identify and include _ALL MISSION CRITICAL_ systems in that 40%!!! Doh!

This is anecdotal of prevailing management-think with regard to approaching the Y2K debacle.

Time will tell, imminently.

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus1@yahoo.com), January 06, 2000.