InformationWeek

March 29, 1999

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Tool Time For Y2K

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Most client-server Y2K testing tools are designed to run over WANs for easy remote access. But many smaller companies don't use WANs. That's where tools such as EZcheck 2000 and PCfix 2000, both from The About Time Group, come in.

Auto Warehousing Co., a Tacoma, Wash., company that delivers new cars to dealerships, has operations in 30 locations in 17 states, with 1,300 employees and $50 million in revenue. All the locations' computer systems are standalone and communicate with the others via dial-up modems. CIO John Anderson turned to PCfix 2000 because it was one of the few testing products set up to process PC hardware checks remotely without using a WAN.

"The products offered the flexibility in distribution management that I needed," says Anderson. "About Time recognizes the difference between big businesses and smaller ones that can't afford to run standard-issue WAN networks."

Anderson sent out EZcheck 2000 as a companywide E-mail attachment, along with instructions for each user to print. The tool generated a report on each PC, which users sent back to Anderson. If PCcheck detected problems, Anderson E-mailed PCfix 2000, which users ran to remedy the problem. PCfix2000 then generated a report confirming the repair, which users E-mailed back to the IS department, where it's filed for future reference.

"I think About Time took a great approach for small businesses," Anderson says. "Unlike big companies, we don't have the budgets or personnel to spend a lot of time on our Y2K problems." He estimates the software saved his company more than 50 times what he spent on the tools, although Auto Warehousing received a generous price break because it was a beta user. But even at the full price of $74.95 per seat, Anderson says, the project would have had a hefty return on investment.

Midsize businesses are also gaining an advantage from the rich supply of Y2K testing tools. Vinita Verma, a technical lead with consulting firm Keane Inc., worked on Y2K remediation for housewares retailer Williams-Sonoma Inc. Verma found a low-cost solution in Antrix Corp.'s Gear/2000, a comprehensive toolkit for the IBM AS/400, which controls much of Williams-Sonoma's business operations.

Verma says Gear/2000 worked well--but more important, it cost only $12,000, far less than anything else in its class. She says most other tools that do similar work were designed for mainframe systems and cost over $100,000.

Buyer's Market
Other IS managers are finding the plethora of tools means they can be picky. Garth Case, director of IT in the customer-service division of the National Basketball Association, needed a tool to remotely check hardware compliance on his organization's 1,000 networked PCs, ranging from 486s to Pentiums. He found some tools he liked, but they couldn't handle Microsoft Windows NT 3.5.1, which resides on 35% of his machines.

Then he discovered Centennial International's Centennial 2000, which can scan the NT 3.5.1 machines, as well as those running NT 4.0 and Windows 95. Centennial 2000 checks spreadsheet and database files for noncompliant dates; tests and fixes PC hardware and operating systems; creates a list of all applications and data files on the network; and provides real-time reports. Because Centennial uses the network to automate the process, no user intervention is required and all management is centralized.

Case says the biggest benefit was the savings the tool provided. He estimates it would have taken about 300 hours for IT technicians to visit and test all 1,000 PCs on the NBA's network. At $125 an hour, that adds up to $37,500. Centennial 2000 cost Case about $20,000.

Centennial 2000 is just one example of how selective IS managers can be when choosing Y2K software, since there's a tool to meet just about any need. ServerLogic, for example, has created SP/2000, a tool for examining database store procedures, an aspect of computer systems not addressed by most Y2K testing tools.

To determine if a Y2K software and testing tool is right for a company's needs, Giga Group's Diamondstein recommends that IS executives ask for a demo and run a few tests with it to see how it performs. He also advises companies to talk with others who have used the tools.

And as Auto Warehousing's Anderson points out, not all Y2K tools perform as advertised. "There are some companies that are unscrupulous," he says. "They take advantage of people's fear of Y2K problems."

Bochman says many fly-by-night companies are out to make a quick buck. They won't be around long to support their tools--assuming the tools work at all. That's why it pays to pick a vendor with a track record, he adds--one that's likely to last past the turn of the century.

But as Anderson and IS managers at other small and midsize businesses have discovered, there are now more than enough good Y2K tools on the market to help them celebrate the millennium worry-free.