What is being done?
Alameda County has been working on the year 2000 problem for over three years. Over 4 Million lines of code have been closely examined for date related fields. These fields were either straight date fields or dates embedded in record key fields. All program changes were carefully tested on a backup computer system. This was done by changing the system date of the computer to various dates in 1999 and 2000 (and, in some cases, to dates five to 10 years in the future). In addition, the dates in the data files were moved forward to dates spanning the Century rollover and beyond. The modified programs were thoroughly tested by both Information Technology programmers and the County departments. All of the mainframe computer programs used by County departments have been converted to handle the Y2K problem and are in current use.

Specifically, what has been fixed?

• Mainframe computer programs
• Information feeds from other departments
  

What is scheduled for 1999?
More Testing! The Information Technology Department plans to re-test all of the production programs on backup computer system. Included in this test will be the programs used by various County departments for transaction processing. The difference between this testing scenario and testing done previously is all of the applications will be running at the same time rather than just the individual program being tested.

County departments will be checking PCs located at their worksites for hardware and software year 2000 compliance. This will involve testing the real-time clock chip and the BIOS for the ability to automatically roll to 1/1/2000 and to recognize leap years (2000 is a leap year). A software inventory will be made on each PC. This inventory will be compared to lists of known Y2K problems. Each department is preparing a plan of action to deal with any problems discovered.

Where is Alameda County on the Year 2000 Problem?

Alameda County has been working for almost three years on the Y2K problem. As of December 31, 1998 all mainframe computer applications had been converted to work with year 2000 and beyond, tested and reinstalled back into production. If Year2000 were to begin tomorrow, Alameda County is ready to go.

Using County Information Technology staff members augmented by independent contractors, over four million lines of computer code were examined, and where necessary, corrected to function beyond the turn of this century. Although the County tried a variety of "remediation machines", (i.e.: software that automatically converted our code to Y2K compatibility) we were unable to find one that gave sufficient accuracy to produce corrected code without extensive proofreading. It was easier and cheaper to use human labor from the start. There was no "silver bullet" solution just lots of hard work.

Once the code was corrected for a particular computer application (e.g.: the Tax Collector, Assessor, Social Services, the Courts etc.), Information Technology turned to their customers to try to "bust the system". Using a Year 2000 simulator, in our case the Isogon Corporation's TicToc product, Information Technology customers entered representative sample transactions of their choosing, into their Year 2000 corrected code. Customers were free to enter as much or as little data as they desired. The object of the exercise was to make sure that the system worked as well after renovation as it did before. Once the customer gave Information Technology their approval, the Y2K corrected code was installed back into production. And that code has been running in day to day production for the County ever since. For example, all Social Services (welfare) code was remediated and reinstalled on our computer on May 26, 1997 and has been running continuously ever since.

What remains to be done in Information Technology for Y2K in 1999? Before mid-year hits we want to try out all of our systems programs (the behind-the-scenes programs that allow applications to function with the mainframe computer) and make sure they function properly in the new century. In this case, there is no simulator used. A separate computer (technically known as an LPAR) is used running on actual known troublesome dates in the new century. And once more Information Technology will turn again to its customers to try out their most toughest cases to see how they react in this still closer to the future setting.

Go Back | Top of Page | Continue | Y2K Home