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Y2K Tools Help Department Coordinators Meet Deadline
With seven months left before the year 2000, the UC Davis campus continues to work toward achieving Y2K compliance on campus infrastructure, central and departmental systems. This summer, many departments will implement or test their Year 2000 remediation solutions. On June 30, UCOP will request a Year 2000 status report from all campus central systems at UC Davis. Thirty-three percent of our campus central systems must be tested by this date. Come July 1, we will have a clearer understanding of how our campus is doing in terms of its Year 2000 remediation.
Two tools are available to campus Y2K coordinators preparing to analyze the state of their departments or units:
- Norton 2000: Information Technology acquired enough licenses to supply five copies per department for free. Each department can purchase additional licenses from the UCD Bookstore at a greatly reduced cost. Norton 2000 allows testing to be performed on the hardware, operating system, and application. In addition, Norton 2000 can check spreadsheet and database files, and generate reports detailing potential Year 2000 exposures.
- Microsoft's Year 2000 Product Analyzer: Will inventory a system, determine which, if any, Microsoft products may have Y2K exposures, and identify remediation options.
With Microsoft's decision not to release Windows 2000 before the end of the year, we will need to continue using current versions of Microsoft's operating systems (Windows NT, 9x), which will require patches to achieve Year 2000 compliance. Microsoft's shift in its definition of compliance will cause systems administrators to continue to re-evaluate the compliance level within their areas through late fall. Microsoft continues to release Service Packs which fix Year 2000 issues, and plans to release one more service pack before Dec. 31, 1999 for NT and Windows 98.
The UC Davis Year 2000 Web site (http://y2k.ucdavis.edu/) provides numerous resources for all levels of computer users, including links to the latest Y2K news, Web sites, articles, downloadable patches and answers to both basic and complex Year 2000 questions. Users can find contact information about the various technology support personnel and Year 2000 coordinators on campus, and links to step-by-step guides and software designed to help determine and alleviate Year 2000 exposure risks.
The Year 2000 site also offers a searchable database with compliance information on specific software packages, links to locally and remotely stored patches, updates to software packages, and vendor designed workarounds.
To obtain news on UC Davis' Year 2000 efforts, join the Year 2000 listserv (y2k@ucdavis.edu) and check the calendar of events on the site.
While the Web site provides a good starting point about the Year 2000 problem, make sure to contact your Year 2000 Coordinator or departmental Technology Support Coordinator for further information and to find out the compliance status of computer systems in campus departments or colleges.
Contact the Year 2000 Program Office at 752-7039 or at y2kstaff@ucdavis.edu.
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