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HSPH Prepares Systems for the Millennium
Y2K. The millennium bug. Year 2000 compliance. It's got
impressive and frightening names. It's getting a lot of media attention. It's
coming in less than 14 months, and Harvard University's
administration is asking us to be prepared.
"It" is the year 2000, and the problem is that anything that has recorded dates with a two-digit designation may or may not continue to function properly. For instance, calculations performed on data sets that have a two-digit date field may be flawed because the year 2000 will be recorded as "00" and appear to be 99 years less than 1999, which is recorded as "99." Other possible problems are less predictable- virtually anything with a computer chip in it, from your personal computer to your fax machine to your electron microscope, may malfunction after the turn of the century.
While the school's offices for Operations and Information Technology have pledged to ensure that the infrastructure of the school is prepared for the turn of the century, departments, laboratories, and offices are cautioned that they are responsible for year 2000 compliance for their own equipment and databases. The first of an ongoing series of meetings was held on October 28 to help members of the HSPH community understand the issues and make plans to insure that the school is ready for the coming millennium.
According to Dan Beaudoin, HSPH energy and utilities manager and the school's designated year 2000 compliance coordinator, the potential sources of problems at HSPH are data, software, computer hardware, and peripheral equipment. At the meeting, he presented a plan for the school community to follow in ensuring year 2000 compliance. The strategy calls for taking an inventory of potential problem areas, seeking letters of compliance assurance from vendors and manufacturers, correcting any identified problem areas, and testing.
A packet of information is being sent to everyone who attended the October 28 meeting. Those who missed that meeting, but would like to receive further information, may contact Beaudoin by telephone at 432-3520 or via Email at dbeaudoi@sph.harvard.edu.
Should you be worried about the so-called millennium bug? Many people are ignoring the warnings; others are building bomb shelters and stocking them with food in anticipation of a type of global economic Armageddon. Beaudoin admits that he doesn't know exactly what's going to happen: "Nobody does- that's the biggest problem. I suspect it'll be something short of disaster if people prepare, but I do think that there are going to be a lot of people around the world who will experience problems. A lot of those problems will be fixable, but people should ask themselves: 'Do I want to prepare now and fix potential problems while there's still time, or do I want to wait until January, 2000, and get in line with all of the other people who didn't anticipate trouble?'"
Year 2000 compliance information is readily available on
the World Wide Web. A good place to begin is at the
university's site: www.uis.harvard.edu/year2000.
