Dry run for Y2K on 9th

By Nick Stanley

When the date rolls over to September 9, 1999, just after midnight tomorrow, emergency and utility services say they will be ready to deal with any problems that may eventuate.

But while no one is expecting much to happen, emergency and utility services are using the date change to 9/9/99 as a test of the century date change and Y2K contingency plans.

Leading the dry-run is the Ministry for Emergency Management (formerly Civil Defence), which will test - from 10 pm tomorrow until 2 pm on Thursday - its Y2K incident monitoring mechanisms from its operation centre beneath the Beehive.

"We are testing our communication links for monitoring, getting everyone together who will be involved on the 31st to send information," said public affairs manager David Schnellenberg.

September 9 is being used for testing because of the potential for malfunction caused by computer systems mistaking the date 9/9/99 for an error code or an "end-of-file" marker that would stop processes in some systems.

Mr Schnellenberg said from the advice the ministry had received about the potential of 9/9/99 to cause disruption to essential services, they were not expecting any problems.

The operations centre will take reports sent in by national and regional utility and emergency services, process the data and publish it in geographical information system maps on a web site www.watchnz.govt.nz. But the incident reports sent in on the night will not be real, as the test is to see if the ministry can manage, process and distribute the information.

Should a 9/9/99 incident occur, Mr Schnellenberg said, the operation would switch into a live response mode.

Clare Pinder, director of the Y2K Readiness Commission, said the 9/9/99 problem was fairly minor as it was not difficult to detect and fix in computer systems.

She said it should have been picked up by companies in the "broader context" of Y2K remedies. The commission had marked 9/9/99 in its list of key dates with a potential to cause disruption, published at the beginning of the year.

All the technical advice the commission had been given from around the country suggested there would be no problems on September 9, though Clare Pinder said there were no guarantees.

"If there is a problem it might manifest itself later on, depending on when a programme runs. It might be on the night, it might be later."

The Auckland City Council's Y2K coordinator, Paul Wilton, said the council would monitor critical services such as water and wastewater systems from 10 pm onwards.

"We'll be hooking into the regional monitoring centre and that's going to hook into the national monitoring centre in the Beehive."

Mr Wilton said the council would treat 9/9/99 as a "live-risk" event, with generators standing by, even though the probability of something going wrong was quite low.

"It [9/9/99] has been part of the standard testing that's been done across the board in the various Y2K programmes."

He said though September 9 was not strictly a Y2K problem, it was related and the council was satisfied that the testing and remedial work it had done over the past year gave it "a high degree of confidence" in its ability to provide critical services should something unforeseen occur.

"Whenever you go into a date that is recognised as a key date you go with an edge of doubt in the back of your mind that despite having gone through absolutely everything and done what you think needs to be done, you might have missed something."

Infrastructure Auckland has no such doubts. Corporate secretary Alan Tonks said there was nothing the company had identified in its Y2K testing that related to 9/9/99.

Keeping the Ports of Auckland open and running would be the company's main concern for the millennium, but he said they were not worried about September 9 as they were confident their remedial work was satisfactory.

Transpower's millennium project director, Robert Scott, said despite exhaustive testing and simulations, the company was not taking 9/9/99 for granted.

It had found no incidence of the use of four nines [9999] in its systems and had consulted other electricity companies in New Zealand and Australia, who had the same results.

"Our key systems ran through 9/9/99 again this week all day until the 10th and there were no problems."

Mr Scott said Transpower could put Y2K contingency plans in place if necessary but the extra staff on duty for the millennium would not work on September 9.

The Airways Corporation has also found no faults. Spokeswoman Heather Hayden said although the corporation had been Y2K ready since November, it would bring in additional staff for September 9 to carry out testing.

"It is an opportunity to test our systems and all our interlinkages right across the aviation industry."

The first domestic flight would not take off until 6 am, which gave the industry time to test and check systems.

Martyn Gosling, of the Civil Aviation Authority, said there was no threat to public safety.

"Nothing is being put down to chance. We have put 9/9/99 in the same basket as Y2K, as a dry-run. It is like the Cox Plate before the Melbourne Cup."