ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook
June 5, 1998                          Volume 3, No. 22

Published by the Information Technology Association of
America, Arlington, VA Bob Cohen, Editor
bcohen@itaa.org

Read in over 70 countries around the world

ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook is sponsored in part by CACI
International Inc., DMR Consulting Group Inc., and
Y2Kplus

Feds Fail Horn Test

Noting that government productivity on Year 2000
conversion has actually declined in the last quarter,
Rep.  Stephen Horn (R-CA) released his federal report
card and served up an overall "F" for Uncle Sam's
efforts.  Horn said the government's rate of prog ress
on bringing mission critical systems into compliance
slipped from 9.4 percent to 7.9 percent in the period
ending May 15.

"This would be discouraging in any context," Horn said.
"Less than a year before the March 1999 deadline for
Y2K repairs, a reduction in productivity is deeply
troubling.  This trend must be reversed."

Six federal agencies received failing marks from the
House Subcommittee on Government Management,
Information and Technology, which Horn chairs.  The
government's poorest performers are the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), the Departments of State,
Health and Human Services, Energy, and Transportation
and the Agency for International Development.  The
Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Justice and
Education received Ds.  Top performers are the Social
Security Administration, General Services Admin
istration, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
and National Science Foundation.  Leading backslider
among agencies were the EPA, which fell three grades
from a B to an F. Most improved on the list were FEMA
(D- to A-) and Labor (F to C).

A former high ranking government official says agencies
now have the history and timelines they need to make
sense of the Y2K issue. They should have the good bar
graphs to know what its going to take, he said,
adding that agencies not performing well on the Horn
scorecard will in all likelihood have serious problems.
He said the governments progress may be slowed by a
variety of factors, including the fact that as more
work is performed, more problems are discovered.
Corrected systems may be beco ming re-contaminated by
other systems, adding to the backward momentum.
Agencies using rigorous independent verification and
validation processes may also be sending portions of
so-called fixed systems back to the bench for
additional remediation, he sai d.

According to the Horn Subcommittee, of the 7336 mission
critical systems in government, 2766 are not expected
to be converted by the Office of Management and Budget
March 1999 deadline.  The government's efforts should
have been aided by the disappearance of 356 mission
critical systems from the total; the Subcommittee
tallied 7692 such systems last February.  Despite this
drop in the number of systems to be fixed, the
government still managed to lose ground.  Only 62
percent of systems are on track for th e March 1999
deadline as opposed to 71 percent in the last report.

Some agencies actually saw their percentage of
completed systems go down between quarters.  Education,
for instance, slid from 36 to 29 percent done; HHS went
from 38 percent to 34 percent; Justice from 33 percent
to 29 percent.  Only 11 of 24 government agencies are
on track to have their mission critical systems
converted before the rollover.  The Horn report card
also includes federal grades for contingency plans,
telecommunications systems, embedded systems and data
exchanges (F, D, F and C respectiv ely).

The government is repairing 42 percent of its mission
critical systems, replacing 14 percent and retiring 4
percent.  Forty percent are deemed Y2K compliant.  Horn
posts the government's Y2K total costs at $4.9 billion.

DoD Official Outlines Testing Framework

Calling on Congress to resist the temptation to craft a
legislative fix to the Year 2000, Deputy Secretary of
Defense John Hamre outlined the Department of Defense
(DoD) approach to the issue and asked the lawmakers for
the leeway to use it to solve the p roblem.  Hamre
appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee and
said the Y2K issue is not a problem that can be
legislated away or solved by levying new requirements
on the DoD or its program managers.

Hamres testimony focused primarily on the defense
agencys Y2K testing and contingency planning program.
In setting the stage for his remarks, he suggested that
the DoD has certain unique and daunting
characteristics. The Y2K problem is an especially
large, complex and insidious threat for the Department
of Defense-an organization roughly the population of
metropolitan Washington, D.C.; the complexity of a
small nation; resources to sustain a global reach; and
an information infrastructure that relies heavily on
old legacy computer systemsMoreover, DoDs national
security role requiresextra precautions in allowing
access to systems containing classified data and
private sector programmers capable of working on the
Y2K problem must be screened.

Interestingly, while Hamre said that the situation
warrants the attention and leadership of a CEO not
just a CIO, he failed to identify a role for Defense
Secretary William Cohen to play.  Rather, he spelled
out the Y2K responsibility of the DoD CIO, th e special
assistant for Y2K, the DoD Y2K Steering Committee, DoD
component heads, and the Y2K Interface Assessment
Workshops.

Hamre described DoD testing in terms of
systems-centric, functional-centric and mission-centric
perspectives.  Functional and mission-centric testing
will test the agencys ability to conduct collaborative
programs.  Functional testing, he said, will be b ased
on an appropriate combination of interoperability and
laboratory testing across Components, Departments, NATO
and Allies. Hamre continued: Exemplary among
collaborative efforts is the systematic and
comprehensive process that the nuclear communi ty is
implementing to assess mission readiness for the
Nuclear C3I System of Systems.  The process builds on
end-to-end single string testing that initially
demonstrates interoperability from sensor to shooter.

Hamre said mission level testing will require the joint
community to agree on how to test end-to-end
operational capabilities, continuity of operations
planning and risk areas.

Referring to continuity of operations, Hamre said there
are no guarantees that DoDs systems will be risk free
by the century rollover. Systems whose risks have been
mitigated through renovation and testing could fail,
and the failure of one system coul d disrupt many
others.

The defense department executive provided few details
on when functional and mission tests will be conducted,
who would participate in such testing, how test results
would be communicated, or whether re-tests will be
scheduled should initial tests fail.

On a related note, the Senate Appropriations Defense
Subcommittee has appended $1.6 billion to the
Administrations FY 1999 budget in emergency funds for
Y2K repairs.

Buildings Stressed by Date Dilemma

The Year 2000 New Year's celebration may mean more than
noisy tenants to landlords and building managers.  The
Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) has
published a guide to help property professionals cope
with a building full of potentially ba d dates.  The
38-page pamphlet discusses how Y2K problems may have
taken up residence in many buildings and what can be
done about it.

Why raise the roof over the issue?  Many buildings
stand on a foundation of information systems
applications: environmental control, water, power,
telecommunications, lighting, security, fire control
and more.  The BOMA booklet notes that systems may m
isconstrue the scheduled maintenance required for
boilers, chillers or elevators and postpone it-by 100
years.  Leases could be lost, tenant payments
miscalculated, entry systems could lock-up,
surveillance cameras could malfunction.  Building
owners mus t be concerned about their own systems, and
they should be taking steps to communicate impacts--if
any--on tenant owned systems also.

The booklet provides the outlines of a Year 2000 plan,
along with checklists, sample letters to vendors and
tenants, and other resources.  BOMA members own or
manage six billion square feet of commercial properties
across North America.  The organization is on the web
at http://www.boma.org.

Small Business Administration Launches Y2K Campaign

The Small Business Administration (SBA) this week
launched a Y2K awareness campaign in a Washington, D.C.
press conference that featured Sen.  Robert Bennett
(R-UT), Sen.  Christopher Dodd (D-CN) and Y2K Czar John
Koskinen.  In a prepared statement, SBA Adm inistrator
Aida Alvarez said, "The collective health of America's
23 million small businesses is one of our economy's
vital signs.  When small business is disrupted to a
significant degree, the effects ripple throughout the
economy."

SBA's Y2K campaign will include televised public
service announcements and mass mailings to small
business owners.

At the press event, Koskinen defended the
Administrations Y2K progress, suggesting that this
weeks grades issued by Rep.  Stephen Horn were not
representative of the true state of affairs within the
agencies.  In particular, Koskinen indicated that the F
ederal Aviation Administration deserves more credit for
its Y2K efforts.

Also this week, the Senate Small Business Committee
held a hearing on the Y2K impact for small businesses.
ITAA President Harris Miller testified before the
Committee, laying out a series of actions necessary by
government, international organizations an d major
corporations to help small businesses grapple with the
date issue.

Y2K is like a global hurricane.  In this case, we can
see the hurricane coming, and so there should be an
emergency response plan in place, Miller said, calling
for government to offer small businesses low interest
loans, tax breaks, and even a Y2K smal l business corps
to offer technical assistance.

Also at the hearing, Sen.  Bennett, a member of the
Senate Small Business Committee, referred to a recent
study by Wells Fargo Bank that finds 80 percent of
small businesses do not have Y2K contingency plans and,
of those, 50 percent had no plans to create them.
According to Bennett, That is a call to arms.

Closer to Home

The Global Product Development Division of Great Plains
Software, Inc. of Fargo, North Dakota and Ceridian
Employer Services of Minneapolis, Minnesota have
received ITAA*2000 certification.  ITAA*2000 is the
industrys century date change certification pr ogram.
The program examines processes and methods used by
companies to perform their Year 2000 software
conversions.

Business to Business

SERENA Software has begun shipping SyncTrac version
6.2.0, a synchronization and data set change tracking
product for MVS.

CIO Communications, Inc. and International Data
Corporation have announced a new instrument that
enables business organizations to determine the
'degree of pain' they are likely to experience when the
millennium bug strikes. According to the Pain Inde
x, the enterprise with 20 connected applications has
a 26.5% chance of having a problem that is annoying, a
14.0% chance of a disruptive problem, a 4.1% chance of
a business critical problem and a 0.2% chance that
something catastrophic will occur.

Viasoft, Inc. has announced the general availability of
OnMark 2000 version 2.1.  The OnMark family of software
technology addresses each phase of year 2000 conversion
on personal computer (PC) desktops and client/server
applications.

Computer Associates International, Inc.  (CA) and
Information Analysis Inc. say will provide the state of
West Virginia with Year 2000 products and services.

ITAA Y2K Information Center

Solution Providers Directory
http://www.itaa.org/script/2000vend.cfm

ITAA*2000 Certification Program
http://www.itaa.org/2000cert.htm

Outlook Archive http://www.itaa.org/script/get2klet.cfm

Legislative and Litigation Table
http://www.itaa.org/Y2Klaw.htm

Calendar http://www.itaa.org/y2kcal.htm

Vendor/User Status Questionnaires
http://www.itaa.org/questmain1.htm


Sponsor Advertising

CACI International Inc. -- Restore 2000

CACI leverages 35 years of information technology
experience and over 10 years of reengineering systems -
solving the same problems Y2K poses - to offer a total
solution to the Year 2000 challenge: Restore 2000SM.

The Restore 2000 methodology applies a comprehensive
three-phase process to your information systems:
Assess, Plan, and Remediate.  Furthermore, we give you
the option of buying our methodology or our services -
both backed by CACI experience and Y2K expe rts.

The Restore 2000 methodology is ITAA*2000 certified.
In addition, software development processes at CACI
have been independently certified as being at Level 3
of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability
Maturity Model.  Achieving SEI Level 3 p rovides
clients further assurance that CACI solutions
successfully and effectively deliver Year 2000
compliance while allowing you to save money, reduce
risk, and minimize systems disruption.

With approximately 3700 employees worldwide and FY97
revenues in excess of $270 million, CACI provides a
depth of experience and expertise you can rely on.
We've performed Year 2000 conversions for many of
America's biggest enterprises, including major he alth
insurance providers, retail clothing manufactures, gas
companies, airlines, and government agencies.

Superior functionality backed by decades of experience
- CACI's Restore 2000.

Worldwide Headquarters 1100 North Glebe Rd.  Arlington,
VA 22201 http://www.caci.com e-mail:npeters@hq.caci.com

DMR Consulting Group Inc.

DMR Consulting Group Inc.(formerly DMR TRECOM), an
Amdahl company, is a global consulting organization of
nearly 8,000 employees providing a comprehensive range
of information technology services.

Our Year 2000 Practice comprises a comprehensive
offering of consulting, assessment, remediation,
testing, and implementation services utilizing a formal
methodology (APM/2000), best-in-class software tools,
and six global conversion centers.  We have mul
ti-disciplinary experience in most mainframe,
mid-range, and client-server/desktop environments.

APM/2000 includes: 7 Program Management 7
Enterprise-Wide Assessment 7 Impact Analysis 7
Conversion Delivery 7 Testing and Implementation

Year 2000 Risk Management Consulting Services include:
Program Review, Stakeholder Readiness Assessment, Risk
Management and Vendor Compliance Research.

Contact: Stephen Frycki Managing Director, Year 2000
Services - US Phone: 201-200-3923 Fax: 201-200-9046
Email: fryckis@dmr.com Websites: http://www.dmr.com

Y2Kplus

Y2Kplus provides a portfolio of "best of class"
software products and outsourcing services that address
Year 2000 issues.  These offerings are available both
to IT Solution Providers and IT organizations.

Y2Kplus has offerings that address the following needs:

Our offerings include: * Year 2000 risk assessment *
Mainframe inventory verification & code remediation
(COBOL, Natural, Assembler & PL/1) * Midrange COBOL
remediation (DEC, HP, UNISYS, Wang, DG, NCR, Bull &
Tandem) * AS/400 remediation (RPG & COBOL) * Networked
PC Year 2000 Analysis tools Applications: Access,
Excel, Foxpro, Lotus 1-2-3 Languages: Basic, Visual
Basic, C, C++, dBase, Clipper, Paradox PC Hardware,
BIOS & Operating Systems * Testing: Tools: Data
Commander for future date testing, TCS (Test Control
System), Services: Test management & execution,
Facilitated Test Planning, Test strategy.

For more information, please send email to
info@y2kplus.com, visit our web site at
http://www.y2kplus.com or call Dave Ehlke at
781-863-8111.


ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook is published every Friday to
help all organizations deal more effectively with the
Year 2000 software conversion.  If you would like to
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Copyright ITAA 1998.  All rights reserved.  The
Information Technology Association of America, 1616 N.
Fort Myer Drive, Suite 1300, Arlington, VA 22209.
Internet: http:\\www.itaa.org