CFCSEIC News Briefs Week Ending April 24, 1998

CFCSEIC News Briefs Week Ending April 24, 1998

[CFCSEIC]

Center for Computer Systems Engineering News Briefs
Week Ending:  April 24, 1998

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CONTENTS:
NEW VERSION OF ADA ENVIRONMENT
WEB PROVIDES ACCESS TO LEGACY DATA
THE Y2K RIPPLE EFFECT
MICROSOFT Y2K PRODUCT RATINGS
AGENCIES WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THREE RECOVERY SERVICES

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NEW VERSION OF ADA ENVIRONMENT

Topic:  Ada

OC Systems, Inc. has turned up the power in PowerAda in response to 
customer demand.  This newest version of PowerAda is the result of a 
close collaboration between OC Systems and PowerAda users.  The software 
provides an integrated environment for developing, testing, integrating, 
and maintaining complex Ada 83 and Ada 95 applications.  This new 
version, 3.1, is source compatible with previous generation products, but 
offers improved support for program building, an enhanced graphical user 
interface (GUI), and greater configuration management (CM) options.  In 
addition to IBM's CMVC 
system, PowerAda supports three additional CM tool suites:  CVS, a public 
domain extension of RCS; Razor, a highly configurable and streamlined 
package from Tower Concepts; and Clearcase, a full-featured CM system 
from Rational Software.  This new version of PowerAda also includes a 
validated Ada compiler that supports all versions of AIX.  For additional 
information, call (703)359-8160, or contact info@ocsystems.com.

Source:  OC Systems, Inc., 9990 Lee Highway, Suite 270, Fairfax, VA 22030 
http://www.ocsystems.com.
 
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WEB PROVIDES ACCESS TO LEGACY DATA 

Topic:  Software Engineering/Reuse/Y2k

Although this article first appeared in the July 31st issue of 
InformationWeek, its subject, creating Web access to legacy systems, is 
particularly relevant as Y2k efforts expand to update legacy code.  The 
article includes an industry estimate that 70% of all business information 
still resides in mainframe databases, and states that according to IBM, the 
value of that investment is $5 trillion.  Although legacy technologies have 
been regarded as ancient relics, that attitude is changing.  New products, 
including terminal-emulation software, that offer Web access to legacy 
systems are preserving enormous amounts of software and changing the way 
business gets done.  According to the author, Martin J. Garvey, there are 
several reasons for this.  Web-browser technology breaks down the "green-
screen" barriers to working with legacy data, and Web activity is 
server-centric, which facilitates the management of legacy data.  The Web 
interface requires no changes to the legacy systems, and Web-to-host gateways 
bring the resources of traditional host environments to browser users.  In 
addition, corporate attitudes toward legacy systems are changing in 
response to the development of new Web-to-legacy tools that are 
inexpensive to maintain, create applications that are easy to deploy, and 
let companies create front-end functionality that is not dependent on 
back-end alterations.

Source:   Martin J. Garvey, InformationWeek, July 31, 1997 
http://www.techweb.com/wire/news/jul/0731legacy1.html

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THE Y2K RIPPLE EFFECT

Topic:  Y2k

You have worked night and day and are one of those rare IT managers who 
can relax and breathe easy about year 2000 conversions.  Or so you 
thought, until you read this article from the April 13th edition of PC 
Week Online.  The author, Stephanie Neil, uses Visa to demonstrate the 
problem.  Visa will finish testing 131 mainframe applications and 100 
client/server programs by the end of the year, but their systems are 
still in jeopardy.  According to John McCarthy, Vice President of Visa 
International's year 2000 project, they still have to anticipate some 
kind of failure in their supply chain, and come up with a contingency 
plan.  McCarthy believes that no one can expect to survive the year 2000 
unless they test major vendor connections and business partner 
interfaces.  As companies become more reliant on electronic data 
interchange (EDI), electronic commerce, and other electronic transactions 
for 
dealing with key partners and suppliers, they are increasingly at risk if 
those partners botch their own Y2k projects.  At best, companies like 
VISA could find themselves dealing with transaction and data files 
containing corrupted date fields.  At worst, they could find critical 
suppliers and partners shut down.  Concern about Y2k partner problems is 
spreading to other industries.  To help deal with this problem, vendors 
are beginning to deliver tools that can help companies assess their Y2k 
ripple effect risk by testing business-partner applications and data.  
The author concludes that time is running out, and ignorance of external 
Y2k risks could eventually sink a company.  

Source:  Stephanie Neil, PC Week Online, Apr. 13, 1998  
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/pcwo/0413/306363.html

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MICROSOFT Y2K PRODUCT RATINGS

Topic:  Y2k/Software Engineering

This article from the April 15th issue of PC Week Online discusses the 
Y2k compliance of Microsoft products.  Of the company's 60 top 
application and system software products, Microsoft reports that 21 are 
only partially Y2k compliant.  According to Microsoft, Internet Explorer 3.x 
and 4.x is the chief reason for the lack of total compliance in a number of 
these products, and they expect to have a package that will include fixes to 
the various Y2k issues plaguing the product in the next sixty days.  
Other Microsoft products that are not 100% Y2k-compliant include Windows 
95, Windows for Work Groups 3.11, Windows NT Server 4.0, NT Workstation 
4.0, various versions of Office 95, Visual Basic 5.0,  Visual Studio 
Enterprise 5.0, Access 2.0, Word for MS-DOS 5.0, and Office Professional 
4.3.  Microsoft's web site, http://www.microsoft.cm/year2000, provides 
recommended steps to compliance for all of its partially compliant 
products, and has stated that if a fix or service pack is required for 
compliance, the company is committed to providing it to customers for free.

Source:  Mary Jo Foley, PC Week Online, Apr. 15, 1998  
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/pcwo/0415/307106.html

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AGENCIES WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THREE RECOVERY SERVICES

Topic:  Software Engineering/Y2k

The General Services Administration has awarded contracts to three of the 
country's top recovery services:  Comdisco Continuity Services, SunGuard 
Recovery Services Inc., and IBM Business Recovery Services.  These 
contracts will cover disaster-recovery services to support mainframe, 
midrange, and desktop systems.  The three vendors will provide "hot 
sites" that federal agencies could move their operations to in case of an 
emergency.  Agencies will also be able to use these sites to test their 
disaster-recovery plans and seek advice on maintaining their operational 
capabilities under emergency conditions.  Although a Y2k testing 
capability was not required in the solicitation, Dion Rudnicki, a 
client executive at IBM Global Government Industry, believes that Y2k 
conversion testing will comprise a large part of the work performed 
under these contracts.  David Krohmal, manager of GSA's disaster-recovery 
program, believes the contract will eventually serve more than 100 federal 
organizations. 

Source:  Brad Bass, Federal Computer Week, Apr. 20, 1998  
http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1998/0420/frontgwac-4-20-1998.html

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Re: CFCSEIC News Briefs Week Ending April 24, 1998

[Keith Thompson]

CFCSEIC (cseic@sw-eng.falls-church.va.us) wrote:
[...]
> In addition to IBM's CMVC system, PowerAda supports three additional
> CM tool suites:  CVS, a public domain extension of RCS;
[...]

Correction: CVS is freeware, but it is *not* public domain.  It's
coprighted by the FSF and distributed under the GNU General Public
License.

(Usual disclaimers: I am not a lawyer, and I barely speak for myself,
much less anyone else.)

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@cts.com <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst> <*>
Qualcomm, San Diego, California, USA  <http://www.qualcomm.com>
It takes a Viking to raze a village.