Air Force Y2k Center: almost 40 Y2k glitches by 1/3/00; 10% were mission impact

Fusion Center still looking for signs of millennium bug

Released: 3 Jan 2000 by Staff Sgt. Beverly Isik, Standard Systems Group Public Affairs

MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. (AFPN) -- While bases in Guam, Korea, Japan and Europe have ended the first official work day since the Jan. 1 rollover, Air Force systems still showed only minor symptoms of the millennium bug.

It was a slow night for Fusion Center controllers from the Standard Systems Group as they stood watch over Air Force computer systems while the world rang in the New Year.

Serving as the Air Force's Year 2000 help desk, the Fusion Center was up and running Dec. 29. Since then, controllers have handled only minor incidents, most of which turned out to not be Y2K related. For example, some Y2K incident reports were resolved by simply rebooting a system to reset the correct date, explained Fusion Center Director Col. Robert Glitz.

The center tracks more than 1,700 Air Force computer systems, but has received only about 80 incident reports. Less than half of those have been verified as Y2K related, with less than 10 percent having any mission impact. Glitz said there was at no time any degradation of Air Force preparedness or readiness.

"Although the ops tempo is still low and the incident reports we've received have had no significant impact on mission critical systems, the Fusion Center is still up and running," he said.

Air Force systems were basically unaffected by the rollover, but all the anomalies may not have surfaced, according to Glitz. The SSG Y2K Office and the Fusion Center will continue tracking Y2K issues throughout the year.

The Department of Defense and Standard Systems Group, explained Officer of the Watch Maj. Ken Hirlinger, made every possible effort to fix Y2K computer problems and rigorously trained for the rollover. "The Fusion Center is the finale of a long chain of activities that involved renovation, extensive testing and in-depth rescanning of Air Force software to ensure there were no significant Y2K-related problems as we entered 2000," the major said. "The Fusion Center and the processes behind it gave the Air Force the extra edge that enabled us to catch any potential Y2K errors and stamp them out quickly."

Thorough testing, he said, kept the millennium bug from having a serious impact on medical systems and those systems used for aircraft maintenance and military pay.

"We've all worked extremely hard preparing for this," said Senior Master Sgt. Steve Grissett, senior noncommissioned officer of the watch. "We were ready for anything and we met the Y2K challenge head on. You couldn't have asked for a better performance from the troops in the Fusion Center."

Vice commander of the Air Force Communications and Information Center Brig. Bud Bell was here to get a close look at the Fusion Center team in action.

"That's a result of a very well-orchestrated campaign that started two-and-half to three years ago," Bell said. "It represents a tremendous effort from a lot of folks."

The Fusion Center's cross-functional team of active-duty members, Department of Defense civilians and contractors, ensured all Y2K trends and incident reports were logged and tracked to resolution. They worked around the clock monitoring communications networks and customer issues throughout the Air Force, consolidating and transforming raw data into useable information for the Air Force Operations Center at the Pentagon.

Functional experts in the center coordinated with other agencies such as the Air Force Communications Agency, Air Force Personnel Center, Electronic Systems Center, Tri Service Medical Systems Support Center and the Air Force Civil Engineering Support Agency to build Y2K status reports for Air Staff and the Office of Secretary of Defense. The center was also augmented by representatives from various organizations including the Air Force Y2K Office, Air Force Communications Agency, Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, Air Staff and the Air Force Information Warfare Center.

Source: Federation of American Scientists website - Millenia Monitor

http://www.fas.org/2000/signs00/n20000103_000001.htm

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), January 29, 2000