It's June and we're all still speculating about next year. But according to a graph I saw from Gartner Grp. a while back, we should already be about 8% or so through Y2K computing systems problems already (even more if you count pre-1999 failures).

I am an M.D. If a new or previously unrecognized infectious disease had burst upon the scene, it would already be getting analyzed to death. The medical establishment would be gathering and publicizing information about the pathophysiology of the disease, its mortality rate, common complications, most effective therapies, etc. Journal articles would describe actual case histories, and the authors would identify themselves and their institutions.

Most large corporations have had Y2K failures this year. Some governments have rolled over into fiscal year 2000. The bug has been hitting, albeit at a very manageable rate when seen collectively. Is there anything to be learned from these failures, and are they being shared in I.T. journals? Are they being worked around in tricky ways that will not be available next year? If so, that would mean the carefree period we're enjoying now says little about what will happen next year. Or are they being prevented and fixed in permanent ways, without taxing effort, that should give us great optimism about next year's prognosis?

The information is out there. Who is sharing it on what forum to help others?

-- Bill Byars (billbyars@softwaresmith.com), June 14, 1999

Answers

Bill,

I think the federal and state governemnts learned a lot about this back in December/January. It was the unemployment insurance issue:

[snip]

13 States, District Face Y2K Problems

Unemployment Checks May be Slowed

By Stephen Barr

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, December 23, 1998; Page A03

Thirteen states and the District will have to put electronic bandages on their computers next month so they can pay new unemployment insurance claims into the year 2000, Clinton administration officials said yesterday.

The federal-state unemployment program provides one of the first large-scale examples of the problems caused by the "Y2K bug." Computer experts have warned that payments for billions of dollars in Medicaid, food stamps, child welfare and other federal-state benefits could be at risk because surveys have shown that states are moving slowly on the Y2K problem.

Many of the computer systems in the unemployment insurance program, which processes claims, makes payments to the jobless and collects taxes from employers, are more than 30 years old. The systems processed more than $20 billion in state unemployment benefits in fiscal 1998 and provide crucial data on economic trends.

Persons filing claims for jobless benefits are assigned a "benefit year," which means that -- starting Jan. 4, 1999 -- unemployment insurance systems will have to be able to process dates and calculations that extend into 2000. Y2K problems may occur when computers next month try to process a first-time claim with a benefit year that covers both 1999 and 2000, officials said.

Some states that have not solved their Y2K problems will use a simple temporary fix, such as ending all benefit years on Dec. 31, 1999, while other states will use different techniques that essentially trick the computers so they will perform accurate date calculations, officials said.

If the computers are still not ready to operate on Jan. 1, 2000, states then will rely on emergency backup plans, including the writing of benefit checks by hand, officials said.

John A. Koskinen, the president's adviser on Y2K issues, and Deputy Labor Secretary Kathryn Higgins yesterday stressed that the nation's unemployment insurance system would not suffer serious disruptions.

"A year out, we know where our problems are. . . . It's an enormous help to have that information," Higgins said.

Koskinen pointed to the contingency planning for jobless benefits as a clear sign that the government will be able to maintain important services and programs, even if computer systems encounter Y2K problems.

[snip]

Labor Department officials listed Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Vermont as lagging on Y2K repairs. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands also are running behind schedule, the officials said.

Delaware, according to the Labor Department, will not have all computer systems converted until the last possible moment: Jan. 1, 2000. But state officials said the most critical systems have been fixed and suggested that even experts can disagree on how to assess Y2K readiness.

The District should have its unemployment system fixed by March 31, the Labor Department said.

Overall, the repair bill could run to $490 million for the unemployment insurance systems, according to preliminary estimates.

) Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

[snip]

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 14, 1999.

Knowledge gained:

Any problems major or minor will not be enough to rouse the media's attention.

We've had TWO major virus scares that in both cases demonstrated the dangers of "common mode" failures. Y2K was hardly mentioned in the talking head discussion.

Not even a severe market correction will rouse the masses now.

-- wussie (wuss@chickenlittle.com), June 14, 1999.

Bill, a doctor can see a public interest in spreading information about a new disease, symtoms, treatment regimes, etc. and can do so without fear of the value of his "stock" going down or adverse public reaction to his practice from releasing this information. This is not true with a for profit corporation. The release of negative news could have or be perceived to have adverse consequences to the company such as a loss of customers, lawsuits, liability issues etc. etc. It is a different ballgame and in the current climate, the companies will not admit error or problems until it is too late.

-- Tom (Tom@notstupid.gom), June 14, 1999.

Bill:

This appears to be happening to the extent that it's feasible. I say 'appears' because as has been pointed out, such information is treated as strictly confidential for several reasons. Neither the vendor nor the customer of a noncompliant product want it to become public knowledge that either one has problems.

I know this is happening in embedded systems. Vendors are notifying customers of noncompliant devices, and providing a variety of resources such as test methods, replacement notifications, free upgrades, explanations of the nature of the noncompliance, etc. Some vendors of packaged software have been posting noncompliance details, and some are making compliant versions available (either free or for some upgrade fee).

In big IT systems, I don't know. Many of those are home-built systems, and lessons learned about their mistakes aren't transferable. And there may be some cases where what *could* be useful information is being kept secret - how would we know?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 14, 1999.

I'm not sure if this is significant but it is unusual. In the last 14 days our office has gotten seven health insurance checks from 4 different large health insurance companies with money for unknown patients. They had my ss number and address but unknown patients. Also, two large insurance payments supposedly sent to me from health insurance companies are now "missing in the mail". In 30 years i have never seen this. Another surgeon across the courtyard is having a similar experience. Each time the staff called the insurance companies, we were told "we are having computer problems, send the check back." Maybe the repairs are not going well. For what ever its worth.....dr. don

-- dr. don (don29681@aol.com), June 14, 1999.

dr. don

Please keep us informed. This will snowball.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), June 14, 1999.

Mike is quite right. We'll be seeing a *lot* more of this sort of thing.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 14, 1999.

How much more before things grind to a walk, and it becomes dificult to deliver the goods and services?

the $64,000 question. How fault tolerant are these organizations that are already considering their BEST customers, customers that pay as late as 270 days?

chuck

(Medicare pays ambulances at about net 189 - 270)

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), June 15, 1999.

Right yutz, you know the rules, cite your source, Chuck.

A Rural Metro A/R person in Cleve.

CR

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), June 15, 1999.

Bill,

Here's an example of the kind of information you were asking about:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/a299221t.pdf

[snip]

In addition, in June 1999, OMB reported that as of March 31, 1999, 27 states' unemployment insurance systems were compliant, 11 planned to be completed between April and June 1999, 10 planned to be completed between July and September, and 5 planned to be completed between October and December.

[snip]

As an example of the benefits that federal/state partnerships can provide is illustrated by the Department of Labor's unemployment services program. In September 1998, we reported that many State Employment Security Agencies were at risk of failure as early as January 1999 and urged the Department of Labor to initiate the development of realistic contingency plans to ensure continuity of core business processes in the event of Year 2000-induced failures. Just last month, we testified that four state agencies systems could have failed if systems in those states had not been programmed with an emergency patch in December 1998. This patch was developed by several of the state agencies and promoted to other state agencies by the Department of Labor.

[snip]

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), July 13, 1999.