InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
November 29, 1999
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Not Just Another New Year's Eve...
Despite optimism, vigilance is the theme of Y2K weekend
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By now, most companies have completed their Y2K work, or are well on their way to completion. In an InformationWeek Research survey of 200 IT executives from small, midsize, and large businesses released this week, 59% of the respondents say they've completed their year 2000 compliance projects, with another 38% confident that their projects will be completed by Dec. 31. Only 1% say they won't be prepared when the new year dawns.
Despite that, IT managers are planning to monitor systems closely as the year changes. Nearly one in four (23%) of all IT staff members at companies surveyed will be required to be on-site during the night of Dec. 31. That figure is 27% at small companies and 19% at large companies. A significant number of companies are taking the potential for problems very seriously: On average, 11% of respondents will have 100% of staff on-site that night. And most companies are taking it seriously enough to have IT staff on call for the entire weekend-on average, 62% of staff members will be on call. Tellingly, almost half of the respondents say they will have 100% of their IT staff on call, just in case.
Visa International Inc. will debut its worldwide emergency management centers during the changeover weekend, with eight locations around the world. According to John McCarthy, the VP in charge of Visa's Y2K project, Emergency Management Centers are a Y2K version of the company's existing Visa Command Centers, which perform round-the-clock problem-solving for the more than 5 million merchants who accept Visa, as well as Visa's 630 million cardholders-which makes the Y2K weekend not that unusual. "We have to deal with a gamut of problems every day anyway, from power outages to government overthrows to telecommunications failures," he says.
Visa's central emergency center, located at company headquarters in Foster City, Calif., is a collection point for gathering information. From there, executives will monitor business issues such as the management of transactions. Also on-site in Foster City will be a systems Emergency Management Center, which will focus on technical issues such as the detection of failures with telecommunications systems. McCarthy estimates that Visa is likely to use 100 to 120 rotating IT personnel to populate the central emergency center, while another 400 to 500 IT employees will staff the other emergency centers worldwide.
Visa's Emergency Management Centers will be staffed by higher-level employees, including senior VPs and managers familiar with Visa's policies and practices. Visa's CIO and executive manager will be in contact with the central emergency center and will receive "health reports" every eight hours throughout the weekend, says McCarthy, who has spent four of his 5-1/2 years at Visa working on Y2K. The first health report will be produced on Dec. 31 from the Asia-Pacific team.
Also on Dec. 31, Irene Dec, a VP of Prudential Insurance Co. of America, will be on hand at the insurance giant's glass-and-steel building in Roseland, N.J., to coordinate the company's Y2K team. Computer monitors in a second-floor control center, dominated by a large television screen, will receive constant updates. Members of Prudential's IT staff will study the monitoring equipment for any fluctuation in status of the company's systems, including mainframes, networks, servers, and desktops, in 1,400 buildings in 30 countries. "The purpose is to have the pulse of Prudential on year 2000," says Dec.
As the day wears on, Prudential's five line-of-business CIOs, as well as corporate CIO Bill Friel, will take their places in command centers at various Prudential facilities around the country. In the Roseland command center, Dec will have a hot line to CEO Art Ryan and other top business executives, who will constantly update her on their whereabouts. The hot line also will link Dec to many of Prudential's top customers.
Lunch will be brought in and cots set up, both for IT workers looking to grab catnaps in order to stay up beyond midnight, and for those intending to stay the entire weekend. Sparkling cider will be put on ice in anticipation of a round of toasts to the New Year later that evening.
At 11:30 p.m., IT personnel will shut down all batch applications, and they'll shift their focus to infrastructure and telecom systems. As the clock nears midnight, members of Prudential's Y2K team will keep their eyes glued to the monitors-and cross their fingers.
Prudential and Visa aren't alone in recruiting their top IT managers to play a role in monitoring systems on Y2K weekend.
According to InformationWeek Research, many CIOs will share the burden with rank-and-file IT staff of working through the night on Dec. 31. Overall, 41% of IT managers say their company's highest-ranking IT executive will be on-site that night. And while that's down slightly from 49% in a similar InformationWeek Research survey last June, it still represents a significant involvement on the part of management. "We're taking this to the top executives," says Prudential's Dec.
McCarthy says Visa will make sure there's food and housing available for its employees who must be away from home for the weekend. In providing food, beverages, and sleeping accommodations, Visa and Prudential are unusual in their hospitality. While 47% of respondents to the InformationWeek survey say their companies are providing specially catered food and drink for the New Year's vigil, 45% say their companies will provide no special accommodations. As for sleeping arrangements, only 16% say their companies will pay for hotel rooms, and only 7% will provide cots.
continued...page 2, 3
Illustration by Chris Lensch
Photo of McCarthy by Alan Blaustein
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