Y2K is the synonym of Year 2000 and now a day it is known to be one of the greatest problems for the whole world. It is not a software or hardware or virus. It is simply the problem of concept of dates in Computers as well as in our daily life. Right now, we are using dates in dd/mm/yy format (i.e. 1st January 1998 is 01/01/98), but in the next millenium (i.e. in Year 2000), this format (01/01/00) will not make any sense. All date related formats need to be changed, manual or computerised, and this changeover is Y2K Problem.
This problem is related to dates of next century, i.e. 2000 onward. It is misunderstood as a problem of Computers only. Actually it is a problem for all of us. If you write a date on a piece of paper, you will face problem from 1st January 2000, as you have to write 1/1/00, which is confusing as well as not so nice looking. Same is the case of computers. Computers gets confuse over the century part of date (00 is 1900 or 2000?) and start giving wrong results. All the pre-printed forms/applications have two-digit column for century, these all should be discarded with new prints (with four-digit column for century). You can also start writing four digit century on paper (1/1/2000 and so on), but with computers, as the old pre-printed stationary, you need to modify the system (full or part as needed) to accommodate four digit century in data. There are several other electronic devices which performs date related calculations like digital watch, employee attendance recorder etc., they also will give false report of dates & time.
The effect of this problem is very vast as it is on global scale. Even if you can make all your system (manual as well as mechanical) compliant with this problem, you are expected to face problems because of your dependency on other systems that are not compliant. This is the reason why all the major international airlines are closing down all their services for 36 hours from 31st Dec. 1999. They will be travelling in different zones and dependent on different airports for vital information which can be wrong if the airport system is not Y2K compliant. There is one more threat, one can not be complete sure that his/her system is compliant because we don't know in how many ways it can affect us. What we can do is we can fix all known problems and hope that no unknown or unestimated problem occurs. These are the most affected areas by Y2K problem:
And due to the above, we can face problems like these:
The above is a small list of known problems. Actually, no one knows what other unforeseen problems can come out. Till now, we are assuming that most of the problems are related to electronic & computer devices and our dependency on them in our daily life. The dependency is in a very big manner and we can not imagine our life without the help of computers/electronic devices. In computer hardware/software, this is the situation on a global scale:
In our country, we are still using primitive hardware/software and will face Y2K Problem. Most of Indian organisations are taking Y2K as a joke and not taking it seriously. Normally we assume that ‘Innocent until proven guilty’. But in this case, we fail to understand that we have to work on ‘Non-compliant until proven compliant’. There are lots of examples for tests done on Y2K to prove the seriousness of this problem.
A pharmaceutical unit, invested lots of work to make itself Y2K compliant, forwarded its clocks to the year 200 for test, the plant came to a grinding halt in 90 seconds.
Reserve Bank of Australia also tested the problem and its vault swung open and remained frozen in that position.
A Chemical plant conducted the test and found that within the first minute of the next century, it would have triggered an explosion that would have taken 10,000 lives.
As the above examples indicate, the problems should be taken very seriously. Hindustan Lever has already put 150 people on this job. But we have to look whether our hospitals are compliant to this problem? What about our airlines? Will our telephone or other communication system work in next century? Are our money deposited in banks safe?
It seems like a panic situation. And yes, it is. But do not worry, although late, our government begins to act on this problem. DoE (Department of Electronics) has already given letters to alert all government departments. Our very new National IT Task Force has allocated Rs. 700 crore to fix Y2K problem crucial government organisations. RBI has given instructions to all its banks for conducting a through check for this problem. Our NSE claims to take care of 40% of the problem. MTNL says it will soon start the checking. Air India & Port Trust of India has already audited their many applications. Indian Railways is claiming that its system is Y2K compliant. So, our country (at least the government sector) is preparing to tackle this problem seriously. The same it expected from private sectors.
It depends upon your organisation’s infrastructure and investments in Computers/Automated machines. If you are using only a couple of computers, your way of taking Y2K issue will be different. But if your total production is going on with the help of automated machines or you are having a large network of computers having data for last four-five years, you will have to act accordingly. Actually no one knows the full impact of this problem, but we can safeguard ourselves from the known impact by implementing the following steps:
The situation is alarming and we need to start now as development/conversion will take atleast 6-8 months in any organisation small or big. It seems that the problem will occur on 1stJanuary 2000, but as our Financial Year starts from 1st April 1999, so we need to implement the new system before that otherwise we may loose the data entered into the old system for new financial year because of conversion problems. Check this before going for development of any new system. The developer should finish the work before 1st April 1999 or will transfer all the data into the new system. In any case, the deadline for us is 31st March 1999 and not 31st December 1999.
Binay Kumar Pandey,
bkpandey@geocities.com
