Year 2000 Disaster Recovery Plans

["Mike Cornwell" <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Colleagues,

I have just been promoted to MIS Manager and one of the new projects that I
have been given is to put together a Year 2000 contingency plan to continue
operations in the event that the computer systems are non-functional on
January 3, 2000. We just went though a general accounting audit by a new
firm and one of the areas that they had exception with in MIS was the lack
of this plan.

How detailed are other companies being when putting together such plans? Do
you base the plan on the fact that you have no computers at that time and
devise completely manual systems? And what is the scope of this type of
contingency plan? Do you plan for just a couple of days, a week, month, or
indefinitely.

We have already made our modifications to our software and tested it (as
much as you can) to make it Y2k compliant. We've surveyed our vendors,
customers, phone systems, plant machinery, and other office equipment and
feel we are ready in those regards.

As far as testing goes, I was wondering how other companies have handled
testing. I know there are products out there that simulate dates and that
sort of thing. Has anyone gone further with testing than using these types
of programs. I too know that you can't just change the date on your system
to 1/3/99 and work for a while, you can have all kinds of problems with
doing that. I have considered renting a system (we run an AS/400), loading
our software onto it and attempting to duplicate our environment as much as
possible and then setting it's date forward, testing the software, then
wiping the system clean. Anyone else done anything like this?

I'm really looking for any information that you all are willing to share
when it comes to preparing for the Year 2000.

When I was the Sr. Programmer/Analyst, I worked on the Y2k fixes and was
aware of the problems, but now that I am going to be a manager over that
time, somehow it seems just a little more real and important to me.
Everything is relative, you know.

Thanks in advance,

Mike Cornwell
MIS Manager
Colson Caster Corporation
Jonesboro, Arkansas

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