State Computers Crash

The Associated Press

SANTA FE -- A computer crash Monday had a ripple effect on the state water agency and threw a curve at the Motor Vehicle Division, which found itself unable to process driver's license applications. The malfunction also caused problems for the state worker-compensation administration and the state records and archives center, said Mark Moores, spokesman for the General Services Department. But there was no impact on the Legislature. "The vast majority of state offices are up and running normally," Moores said.

The General Services Department operates the state's mainframe computer. On Monday morning, technicians detected a problem with one of the computer's routers.

"The router is a kind of gateway into the mainframe," Moores said. "There are a number of routers on the system, and we are having problems with just one of them."

Technicians will work through the night attempting to either work around the problem, reconfiguring the system to adapt, or to fix or replace the router entirely, he said.

The MVD, the Worker's Compensation Administration, the State Records and Archive Center and the State Engineer's Office, which oversees state water supplies, all found their computer access impaired Monday, he said.

"It was up and down through the morning. We decided to take it down instead of having this seesaw," Moores said. "We want to make sure it's fixed and fixed properly."

The most high-profile problem was for the MVD field offices, he said. "It basically means the systems -- the Motor Vehicle Division and these others -- are not able to communicate with the mainframe computer, which means they are not able to process their applications.

"If you're trying to get a new driver's license, they're not able to process them," he said.

-- Patrick Lastella (Lastella1@aol.com), February 02, 2000

Answers

A router problem is NOT a mainframe problem, within the normally accepted usage of those terms. That's like saying your car is broken because you can't find your keys. Don't blame the car.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), February 02, 2000.

No mention of the unmentionable word...

-- Yet another non-Y2k (problem@boring.zzz), February 02, 2000.

Thank you Patrick, you do nice work. Please keep at it! Hey you porky pig oink oink troll,even the Pat mans week old posts contribute far more than your "DEBUNKY" sized brain ever could. So keep away!

-- pam&bob (P&B prepped@pikes peak.com), February 02, 2000.

Wonder if it was a Cisco router?

-- Wondering (wondering@whoknows.net), February 02, 2000.

Hmmmn.

Last time I looked, a "router problem" requires fixing a computer that shuts down a mainframe computer for the entire state most certainly qualifies as a "computer problem"....unless of course, the fact that you can't start your car or drive your car "because you can't find your key" doesn't qualify as a "minor transportaion problem".....

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 02, 2000.

It's a serious computer problem, in that the mainframe is inaccessible, and functionally out of action. But the glitch was not in the mainframe, and to put that in the title is misleading, particularly in the current (y2k-sensitive) environment.

Either way, it's disruptive to the folks who want to use it, just as being unable to get to a hospital because you're keyless is as bad as being unable to get there because the engine is toast.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), February 02, 2000.

The generic use of "mainframe" in the title was non-chalantly taken from the article itself though I didn't mean to apply it to technical computer understanding. Sorry if it seemed that way. I see what is being said by way of explanation.

-- Patrick Lastella (Lastella1@aol.com), February 02, 2000.

I should have said "mainframe RELATED" but it was too late after submitting it. I read the article wrong, thinking it was directly a mainframe problem. Doesn't help being slightly sick. Second error of the day in a posting I made. Oh well.

-- Patrick Lastella (Lastella1@aol.com), February 02, 2000.

With due humility,deference and respect to mainframe programmers: I literally matured with our mainframe system. As a young adult in the 1970's I witnessed its "birth". we thought we were hot stuff then. Over the years it was expanded, then linked from state to state, from state to federal, state to county, state to city,state to web,state to NT. It was patched, upgraded, modified, transformed. There are files that I know exist because I called them years ago (and the tape archives are humongous)that are supposed to be functional but in fact no one knows how to access anymore. There are back doors, old sysop permissions which were never deleted. These systems (or this system in toto) increments daily. It also has some amazing glitches, and Y2K errors added a nice spice to the soup. Government computer systems on any level contain an inherent mainframe referent.

-- another government hack (keepwatching_2000@yahoo.com), February 02, 2000.