BigDog's Cameo Appearance in Core's Westegaard Column

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

http://www.wbn.com/y2ktimebomb/Computech/Issues/lcore9945.htm

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-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), November 10, 1999

Answers

*SNIP*

And a frequent contributor to the discussions at the TimeBomb 2000 forum who goes by the handle Big Dog replied as follows (ellipsis in original):

"Assuming, as is prudent, that the money spent on Y2K has been money well spent, it is crystal clear that FOF [Fix On Failure] will take weeks or months (years?) for organizations that have performed zero or minimal remediation. Since a significant number of entities fall into this bucket (millions of SMEs [Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises] and even entire countries, apparently), a three-day repair cycle seems utterly disconnected from the Y2K lessons that have already been learned (i.e., about the need to budget and schedule over a long time period). In other words, unless the money spent so far has been deceptively described (it was 'really' spent on non-Y2K budget items for the most part), a fixed amount of time will be required for FOF, just as it was for organizations that devoted the time before FOF.

"As for organizations that have partly remediated, it would again seem prudent to project a post-rollover period of fixes that would be roughly equal to the time that would have been needed to complete the same tasks pre-rollover, whether that be three days, three weeks or three months. The inexorable laws of software projects remain just that.

"I am omitting for now any issues touching on intra-organization chaos, panic, supply chain breakdowns and the like that may also accompany FOF. Even if we project those to be a non-factor, it seems that FOF for any given entity must be a relatively straightforward projection based on the amount of work still to be done. While that might be three days in a given case (say, if they are really 99% complete), this is, most likely...unlikely. In fact, the three day FOF scenario did not really seem to be born of a technical analysis, Gartner aside, but rather fits neatly into the political and PR presentation with respect to panic and mobilizing emergency help for families and communities. Now, if only the Red Cross could fix Y2K bugs."

*SNIP*

-- ExCop (yinadral@juno.com), November 10, 1999.


Likewise for replaced systems (ie, time requirements).

I believe I said or should have said that one can chalk up some time saving to, either, lessons learned from other remediation and/or the hope (just a hope, though intuitively reasonable) that fewer and/or less serious bugs are the ones that will appear during the FOF period.

Personally, I view the "enhanced" intra- and extra-organizational noise that will be generated (FOF is "real-time" for the business) and supply-chain problems (if only standing in line with all the others clamoring for needed hw/sw/consulting) to wash out the above.

Also, because I differ on Hoffy's "non mission-critical systems are inactive systems," I expect another axis of confusion to ensue from the discovery that mission-critical systems or subsystems or applications were missed or inadequately touched.

Milage will vary bizarrely depending on the size, nature, culture and skills of each organizational entity.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 10, 1999.


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