"Needless to say, we poor Hoosiers in IT have never had to deal with this," fish says. "And while most will gloss over the problem with a 'we'll handle the fallout when it comes up' attitude, our organization has decided to take a more proactive approach."
First step is knowing how to change the time on the servers. That's helpful, but in fish's recently rebuilt server room, individual consoles have been eliminated to save space. "We now have eight Web consoles to control 800 servers," sighs fish. "Use Telnet and remote console? Not enough warm bodies."
And what about the applications? fish wonders. Do they get screwed up with missing time, or with overlapping hours? Do any have to be shut down to avoid problems?
And scheduled batch processes -- do they run twice or not at all? Do they have to be scheduled so they avoid running between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. the other 363 days a year, or does fish's IT shop need special schedules that run just two days a year?
"We were told, 'You'll just have to check with every vendor to see how the applications are handled elsewhere,' " fish grumbles. "So we're in the process of running a Y2k-style check of every system and every application.
"A call to the governor's office to find out if any state resources would be available to guide us yielded a simple, 'Just set the time zone and turn off your computer when you go home, and it will be correct the next day.' When we pointed out that our environment is a critical 24-by-365 operation and that there is no way we can shut down our systems, they said, 'Well, you'll just have to figure it out.'
"In a quandary, I asked for guidance. VP's response: 'They do it everywhere else, so it must be possible. Just do it!' "My realization: Folks in other states configure their systems on installation as the standard build. The people who originally figured out how to make it work the first time have long since retired and/or died!"