The End Of The World?

In reality nobody really knows what will happen and while we should take account of the views of informed individuals and Y2K groups, the way the scenario constantly changes makes precise judgements difficult even for the most well informed.

One example is the airline industry. Originally it was generally of the view that no aircraft would fly through midnight on the 31st December 1999, but it now appears that not only will BA be flying through midnight, but it is also reported that a number of senior executives will be aboard the aircraft.

So this is good news on the compliant front - until you read the Sunday Times report on 18th July which revealed that 50% of the British Army in Kosovo will return to the UK to provide support to the Government if required: protecting critical installations, banks and, together with the Police, the population generally.

We can reasonably assume that most countries have prudently put plans in place to deal with various scenarios and the quality of such plans will depend upon the individual country and the resources available to it.

Some will fare better than others and it may prove to be something of an irony that the less developed countries which cannot afford vast computer resources may actually perform better in some areas than those that have totally embraced computers as a way of life.

However, given that compliance in the major areas of concern improves with every passing week and the movement of people and material will be generally unhindered, it is difficult to envisage the Government losing control and the world as we know it ending on the 1st January.

Nevertheless this should not lead to complacency as even the most optimistic person knows there will be failures and problems to deal with in the early days, and all companies should review their disaster recovery plans.

Within these plans it is of paramount importance to secure multiple copies of mission critical data so that, for example, in the event of a major power outage during the early days of January, the final transactions of 1999 do not have to be reconstructed at a time when there may be more pressing issues.

It is also important to remind those who are connected to central resources, but that are working primarily from home, to secure their own files as probably the last thing that most IT managers will need under difficult circumstances is the problem of downloads.

One other important reason for taking copies of mission critical data is that the virus brigade will be very active during this period and we will find numerous examples of viruses that will be triggered not just at midnight, but into the days, weeks and months ahead.

Whether or not there are any other problems during the first few months of 2000, care will need to be exercised in restarting computer systems, downloading files, or using the Internet.

Whatever happens as we leave 1999 we should look forward to the new millennium with confidence, safe in the knowledge that our own resourcefulness can overcome whatever problems are presented to us. Historically this has been the case.

As we head toward the end of the 20th Century there have been numerous television programmes and newspaper articles celebrating the 30th Anniversary of man landing on the moon and all that it took to get there. However, when thinking about Y2K, I am reminded more of that tremendous feat later in the space programme which involved bringing the three Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to earth when all seemed lost and many people were predicting disaster.

During those difficult days of the rescue one man stood up and said "failure is not an option" - a sentiment that we would all do well to echo as we move from this century to the next.