From: cseic@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us (Center for Computer Systems Engineering Information Clearinghouse)
Subject: CFCSEIC News Briefs Week Ending July 17, 1998
Date: 1998/07/22
Date: 1998-07-22T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <6p51d8$h76@ns1.sw-eng.falls-church.va.us> (raw)
Center for Computer Systems Engineering News Briefs
Week Ending: July 17, 1998
************************************************************************
CONTENTS:
DOD EXTENDS NETSCAPE ENTERPRISE LICENSE
BUILT-IN TESTS AND REUSE IN OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING
NFC: READINESS REQUIRES CONTINGENCY PLANNING
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE TESTS Y2K FIXES
MISSING SOURCE CODE
Y2K SING ALONG
*************************************************************************
DOD EXTENDS NETSCAPE ENTERPRISE LICENSE
Topic: Software Engineering
The Defense Information Systems Agency's (DISA's) Enterprise Software
License Division has extended the Department of Defense's (DoD's)
licensing agreement with Netscape Communications Corporation through
September 30, 1999. This license agreement, negotiated under the
Agency's Integrated Computer-Aided Software Engineering (I-CASE)
contract, provides Netscape client and server software products to the
entire DoD, covering over two million users. DoD employees, contractors
working on-site at DoD facilities, and contractors working off-site on
DoD-furnished equipment, can run these Netscape products on their work,
portable, or personal/home workstations. They will be able to access the
Netscape servers covered under this contract anywhere they are deployed
within the worldwide DoD environment.
The Netscape products included under the new licensing agreement are
Netscape Communicator Client (Professional Edition with and without
FORTEZZA), Enterprise Server with LiveWire Enterprise Server with and
without FORTEZZA, Messaging Server with and without FORTEZZA, Collabra
Server with and without FORTEZZA, Directory Server with and without
FORTEZZA, Certificate Server, and two new servers added under the
contract extension - Mission Control and Security Services.
Additional Netscape products not currently covered under the DoD-Wide
Netscape Enterprise Licensing Agreement can still be purchased under the
I-CASE contract at prices lower than those on the GSA schedule. The
I-CASE contract also makes products from approximately 110 other vendors
available to government users at prices below GSA schedule.
For further information about the products available through the Netscape
DoD-Wide Enterprise Licensing Agreement or the I-CASE contract, please
contact DISA's Enterprise Software License Division at 703-681-2088 or
licenses@ncr.disa.mil.
Source: Richard Reinhardt, Enterprise Software License Division,
703-681-2103, reinharr@ncr.disa.mil
************************************************************************
BUILT-IN TESTS AND REUSE IN OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING
Topic: Software Engineering
The authors of this article in the July issue of Software Engineering
Notes question whether the capability of object-oriented programming
(OOP) has developed completely, or whether new methodologies can be
developed that will further its evolution. They answer their own
question in this article. They have developed a new kind of software
test, a built-in test (BIT), which is explicitly described in the source
code of software as member functions. Software with BITs has two
operation modes: normal mode for execution, and test mode for debugging,
testing, and maintenance. The BITs are on standby in normal mode and can
be activated in test mode. This paper introduces the concept of BITs,
and provides standard structures that incorporate the BITS into
conventional object-oriented software (OOS). The authors discuss reuse
methodologies for BITs that are developed at object and system levels in
OOS. The authors believe that extending the inheritable structure and
reusability of OOS from code to test using the BIT methods can enhance
the capability of object-oriented mechanisms such as encapsulation,
inheritance, and reusability. They state that OOP supplemented by BITs
can form a new self-testable programming method.
Source: Yingxu Wang (wangy@sbu.ac.uk), Graham King
(Graham.King@solent.ac.uk), Dilip Patel (dilip@sbu.ac.uk), Ian Court,
Geoff Staples, Margaret Ross, and Shushma Patel, "On Built-In Tests and
Reuse in Object-Oriented Programming", Software Engineering Notes, v23 n
4, pp. 60-64 http://www.acm.org
*************************************************************************
NFC: READINESS REQUIRES CONTINGENCY PLANNING
Topic: Y2k
According to an article in the July 13th issue of Government Computer
News, the National Finance Center has finished making its date code
fixes. The USDA center fixed 23.5 million lines of code, which was
primarily written in COBOL and "chock full" of dates. It has fixed its
mission-critical applications on schedule, and will begin validation
testing. Later this month, NFC will test its readiness to operate for an
extended time under diesel power. They will bring up every machine,
light, and terminal. If there is any possibility of computer-induced
electrical outages after 2000, they intend to park several diesel trucks
near the center. John Ortego, the center's director, said that readiness
required a lot of contingency planning.
The center processes the payroll for 100,000 Agriculture employees; the
IRS and Library of Congress; the Commerce, Justice, and Treasury
Departments; and handles processing for 2.3 million participants in the
federal Thrift Savings Plan.
This summer NFC's Y2k staff will begin copying entire applications
running on two IBM ES/9000 mainframes and loading them onto a separate
IBM System/390 time machine for forward date testing. The time machine
has a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor processor rated at 61
million instructions per second, a terabyte of attached storage, two
robotic tape silos, and an IBM 3745 front-end communications processor
for testing 500 interfaces to external systems. NFC is already
scheduling clients for testing on their time machine.
The center used windowing logic rather than date field expansion. The
added logic can handle two-digit or four-digit dates, but that won't work
for all cases. There are a few special cases that NFC is aware of, and
if systems that affect them haven't been replaced, the center will handle
them manually.
NFC has already spent $8 million, and may spend another $2 to test and
retest readiness through 1999. Many of their younger staff were not
trained in COBOL. NFC got around this problem by providing in-house
training and pairing them with experienced COBOL programmers.
Source: Florence Olsen, "NFC's ready to 'take on' 2000", Government
Computer News, July 13, 1998 http://www.gcn.com/gcn/1998/July13/cov1.htm
************************************************************************
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE TESTS Y2K FIXES
Topic: Y2k
White Sands Missile Range tested its Y2k fixes by rolling its computers'
internal clocks forward past the Year 2000. This vast system of
computers was able to successfully track a jet aircraft without a
glitch. Five clock changes were made in the computers that controlled
the jet as it traveled 15,000 feet above the range at a speed of nearly
500 mph. The clock was rolled forward to Jan. 1, 2000; Leap Day; the day
after Leap Day; the last day of the year; and the first day of 2001.
White Sands expects to share what they have learned with other organizations.
They spent nine months and nearly $1 million preparing for this test. A
simulation was conducted before the F4 Phantom jet, which was modified to
be flown as a drone, took off. Until the computers' clocks were reset in
real time, no one knew for certain whether the patches would work.
White Sands officials had to scan 10,000 software packages and examine
more than 4,000 computers to fix date-code problems. They tried Y2k
tools, but rejected them because they generated as much, or more, code
than the programs they were analyzing. They identified and fixed
programs manually in order to meet the Army's compliance deadline.
Rona Stillman, chief scientist for computers and telecommunications at
the General Accounting Office feels that rolling the date forward on
computer systems can be dangerous, and that the system can make changes
that cannot be rolled back. Range officials also were concerned about
the danger of accidentally ending software licenses tied to certain time
periods, and about other unseen effects in their test results, which they
will be studying for some time.
Source: Anne A. Armstrong (anne_armstrong@fcw.com), "Y2K test hits mark
at missile range", Federal Computer Week, July 6, 1998
http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1998/0706/fcw-newsmissile-7-6-1998.html
**************************************************************************
MISSING SOURCE CODE
Topic: Y2k/Software Engineering
As much as 3% of your total source code may be missing, according to
leading Y2k consultants. Some of it may be mission-critical. The Source
Recovery Company (SRC) LLC, based in Framingham, MA specializes in
reverse-engineering executable code back to the source code. SRC's
technology can recover Assembler or COBOL code in the IBM environment for
any MVS, VSE, or VM program. They claim that their Assembler
Recovery/SRC 2.0 may be the first service to disassemble Assembler code
to the macro level. For more information about this service, see
http://www.source-recovery.com.
Source: Ian Hayes and William Ulrich, "Locating 'MIA' Source Code",
Software Magazine, July 15, 1998
http://www.sentrytech.com/Y2K/Y2Kjul98/y2k078nf.htm
**************************************************************************
Y2K SING ALONG
Topic: Y2k
Two Digits for a Date (to the tune of "Gilligan's Island," more or less):
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
Of the doom that is our fate.
That started when programmers used
Two digits for a date.
Two digits for a date.
Main memory was smaller then;
Hard disks were smaller, too.
"Four digits are extravagant,
So let's get by with two.
So let's get by with two."
"This works through 1999,"
The programmers did say.
"Unless we rewrite by then
It all will go away.
It all will go away."
But management had not a clue:
"It works fine now, you bet!
A rewrite is a straight expense;
We won't do it just yet.
We won't do it just yet."
Now when 2000 rolls around
It all goes straight to hell,
For zero's less than 99,
As anyone can tell.
As anyone can tell.
The mail won't bring your pension check
It won't be sent to you
When you're no longer 68,
But minus 32,
But minus 32.
The problems we're about to face
Are frightening, for sure.
And reading every line of code's
The only certain cure.
The only certain cure
Source: Ian Hayes and William Ulrich, "Locating 'MIA' Source Code",
Software Magazine, July 15, 1998
http://www.sentrytech.com/Y2K/Y2Kjul98/y2k078nf.htm
***********************************************************************
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