Year 2000 -- Are You Ready?

There is a great deal of hype about this problem in the news media. A reader might get the impression that trees will grow upside down and the ocean will drain once the year 2000 begins, and that the only solutions involve spending the next decade of budgets on consultants, buying all new equipment and software, or revising operations to bring back the quill pen and horse-drawn cart.

The truth is that for most agencies, Y2K is a manageable problem if it is faced in a timely and organized manner. Much of the key information and the necessary tools are available on the internet.

Begin by Becoming Informed

Focus on Agency Problem Areas

However, the most challenging risks involve what are called "embedded systems," where specialized microprocessors are built into equipment such as alarm, telephone, facility heating and ventilation systems, and lock systems. These micro-processors may rely on dates in ways that are not obvious. It is very likely that, on the first day of the year 2000, there will be buildings without heat, elevators that do not move, and locks that do not work. We need to make sure that these problems do not involve prisons and jails.

 Within a typical prison or jail agency, responsibility for the Y2K problem can be divided into several broad areas. If your agency shares a computer system with other agencies, primary responsibility for Y2K assessment and remediation should rest with the agency that operates the system. However, your agency may be assigned responsibility for corrections applications that run on the shared system.

Evaluating Your Desktop Systems. Within your agency, there are two potential problem areas: (1) local computers and applications and (2) embedded systems. There are several computer programs that can be used to evaluate desktop computer systems. The National Technical Standards Laboratory provides a free program that tests desktop computers at the hardware level. There also are commercial packages that are designed to evaluate software on desktop computers. A recent list of such packages can be found at PC Y2K Evaluation Software.

As you investigate whether your application software is Y2K compliant, be sure to check on the exact version of your software. The most recent versions of many packages may be Y2K compliant, while earlier versions may not be. Another problem is that, while your spreadsheet software itself could be fully compliant, your spreadsheet files may not be. For example, your accounting division may use a spreadsheet to summarize canteen inventories, written years ago by your accounting staff, which might store years as a two-digit number rather than as a date. When the inventory suddenly reports 100-year old products, it will not be the fault of Microsoft or Corel. The fault lies with the accountant who did not use a date function correctly.

Reviewing Your Embedded Systems. Embedded systems must be approached in a different way. Begin by identifying the hardware that might contain embedded microprocessors. The following is a good listing of Categories of Suspect Equipment. Then, determine the status of each piece of equipment, keeping in mind the exact model, the version of any microcode, and compatibility with related equipment. (For example, a monitoring device may be compliant by itself, but noncompliant if connected to a particular central alarm device. Many vendors have made available the results of their own testing on the internet. The General Services Administration maintains an updated and comprehensive List of Vendors and Products. Product categories include:

• Critical;
• Fire/life safety;
• HVAC Systems;
• Miscellaneous;
• NonCritical;
• Security Systems;
• Utilities;
• Water;