RE: More on NT Was: SAP on NT

[John Carr <74711.77@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>   If you want to read about how NT performs in a REAL "mission-critical"
>application, check this out:
>   Perhaps each copy of NT should come with a free tug boat.
>   - Lou Forlini
>     Software Engineer
>     System Support Products, Inc.



NT   FYI  -   And we're trusting our Service men & National Security  to
what ?  
Should have had an AS/400.      Read Below.

John Carr

--------------------------------------
http://www.gcn.com/gcn/1998/July13/cov2.htm
GOVERNMENT NEWS 
GCN July 13, 1998 

Software glitches leave Navy Smart Ship dead in the water

By Gregory Slabodkin
GCN Staff

The Navys Smart Ship technology may not be as smart as the service
contends.

Although PCs have reduced workloads for sailors aboard the Aegis missile
cruiser USS Yorktown,
software glitches resulted in system failures and crippled ship operations,
according to Navy officials.

Navy brass have called the Yorktown Smart Ship pilot a success in reducing
manpower,
maintenance and costs. The Navy began running shipboard applications under
Microsoft Windows
NT so that fewer sailors would be needed to control key ship functions.

But the Navy last fall learned a difficult lesson about automation: The
very information technology on
which the ships depend also makes them vulnerable. The Yorktown last
September suffered a
systems failure when bad data was fed into its computers during maneuvers
off the coast of Cape
Charles, Va.

The ship had to be towed into the Naval base at Norfolk, Va., because a
database overflow caused
its propulsion system to fail, according to Anthony DiGiorgio, a civilian
engineer with the Atlantic
Fleet Technical Support Center in Norfolk.

"We are putting equipment in the engine room that we cannot maintain and,
when it fails, results in a
critical failure," DiGiorgio said. It took two days of pierside maintenance
to fix the problem.

The Yorktown has been towed into port after other systems failures, he
said.

<SNIP>>
The Yorktown lost control of its propulsion system because its computers
were unable to divide by
the number zero, the memo said. The Yorktowns Standard Monitoring Control
System
administrator entered zero into the data field for the Remote Data Base
Manager program. That
caused the database to overflow and crash all LAN consoles and miniature
remote terminal units, the
memo said.

The program administrators are trained to bypass a bad data field and
change the value if such a
problem occurs again, Atlantic Fleet officials said.

But "the Yorktowns failure in September 1997 was not as simple as
reported," DiGiorgio said.

<snip>
                             Blame it on the OS

                             But according to DiGiorgio, who in an
interview said he has
                             serviced automated control systems on Navy
ships for the past
                             26 years, the NT operating system is the
source of the
                             Yorktowns computer problems.

                             NT applications aboard the Yorktown provide
damage control,
                             run the ships control center on the bridge,
monitor the engines
                             and navigate the ship when under way.

                             "Using Windows NT, which is known to have some
failure
                             modes, on a warship is similar to hoping that
luck will be in our
                             favor," DiGiorgio said.

                             Pacific and Atlantic fleets in March 1997
selected NT 4.0 as
                             the standard OS for both networks and PCs as
part of the
                             Navys Information Technology for the 21st
Century initiative.
                             Current guidance approved by the Navys chief
information
                             officer calls for all new applications to run
under NT.

+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---