Create network-centric apps
Tim Hoechst, an evangelist for network computing, says the federal government eventually will reap maintenance benefits and save money by adopting a network-centric computing model. Hoechst, vice president of technology for Oracle Corp.'s government, education and health sectors, joined Oracle in 1989 after graduating from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in computer science.
Unravel 2000 marks date code errors in Oracle apps
If Oracle database applications are not yet on agencies' year 2000 radar screens, they should be, said David Ghosh, chief executive at Ravel Software Inc. of San Jose, Calif. Oracle Corp.'s date-data types simplify date handling in its development environment. But agencies should examine their Oracle Forms for hidden two-digit year dates that could affect arithmetic operations, Ghosh said.
NUMA servers enter first phase of integrating Unix and NT
Data center users will see Unix and Microsoft Windows NT integrated on non-uniform memory access (NUMA) servers over the next three years. The first phase of integration will begin this year in Sequent Computer Systems Inc.'s NUMA-Q 2000 servers, which will execute NT applications against Unix databases. The servers will have shared storage and systems management software under NT and Dynix PTX, Sequent's Unix operating system.
HP doubles the capacity of its SureStore jukeboxes
Hewlett-Packard Co. has begun shipping magneto-optical storage jukeboxes with double the capacity of previous HP SureStore jukeboxes and a lower cost per megabyte, HP officials said. The new SureStore jukeboxes, which have 5.2G optical drives, store 80G to 1.2 terabytes of data. The last generation of SureStores had 2.6G optical drives.
Software will test PCs, servers for 2000 readiness
New releases of PC asset-management software will include BIOS and real-time clock testing utilities that could help agencies avert PC failures in 2000. Some of the integrated suites can monitor for year 2000 readiness after they distribute fixes. Periodic monitoring almost certainly will be necessary to ensure that PC desktops and servers on a network remain year 2000-ready, said Chris Jesse, president of Tangram Enterprise Solutions Inc. of Cary, N.C.
Two offices TRIM archiving
The Center for Army Lessons Learned and the Office of Thrift Supervision both have archiving projects under way using a Defense Department 5015.2-Std-certified software application called TRIM. The Tower Records and Information Management package, from Tower Software Corp. of Fairfax, Va. [GCN, June 29, Page 1], is a C++ client-server application originally developed for the Australian government.
First servers with Xeon chips wear Dell label
Dell Computer Corp. last week became the first enterprise server maker to ship systems based on the new Pentium II Xeon chip and 450NX chip set from Intel Corp. Chairman Michael Dell vowed to lower prices in the high-end server market through efficiencies that Dell's build-to-order business model has spread to other parts of the computer industry.
NFC's ready to 'take on' 2000
The National Finance Center has finished making its date code fixes, which is good news for the 470,000 federal employees whose paychecks the New Orleans facility processes. "Frankly, I would be prepared to take on the next century today," said the center's director, John Ortego, who reported completing the code assessment, fixes and initial tests.
IBM to optimize DB2 Universal Database management system for Starfire servers
Federal data centers soon can buy IBM Corp.'s DB2 Universal Database management system optimized for E10000 Starfire servers from Sun Microsystems Inc. The Gigaplane crossbar servers accept up to 64 UltraSparc processors. IBM officials said the optimization, which could take up to six months, will require changes to about 10 percent of the database management system's code, which IBM reserves "to optimize for the operating system and the hardware underneath," said Jeff Jones, IBM program manager for
Navy stares down big problems
Researchers who use the new supercomputer installed at the Naval Research Laboratory all have very large problems, computationally speaking. The mission of the laboratory is somewhat akin to skating near the edge of the ice, and it explains why the Navy lab in Washington owns one of the few Cray Origin2000 128-processor computers in existence.
Electronic Grants System is ready for governmentwide rollout in fall
Agencies can use the grants system without making major upgrades. After a successful nine-month pilot, the Federal Railroad Administration has received an additional $300,000 from the Government Information Technology Services Board Innovation Fund to build the full-scale Electronic Grants System, Transportation Department officials said. The $155,000 pilot had served partly as a demonstration showcase for object request broker software from Active Software Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif., startup.
Army center succeeds with archival plan
The Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., may be a step ahead of other government organizations in preserving electronic records. The center has made a showcase of its Virtual Research Library information system, which by all accounts meets the Defense Department's 5015.2-Std mandatory electronic record-keeping requirements. "So as far as I know, we are the first to implement the standard," said Karen Shaw, senior information and records manager for the Army Directorate of Information
Census sires system to foster broader access to its records
Census Bureau officials are thinking out of the box as they design data tabulation and distribution systems for the future. The bureau's Data Access and Dissemination System (DADS) now under construction will serve a potentially unlimited number of users, ranging from students and reporters to congressional staff, demographers and statisticians. For the first time in the bureau's history, the public will interact directly with Census' data warehouse, said Enrique Gomez, DADS program manager and systems division chief
Windows has date flaws
Microsoft Windows 98, now under Justice Department scrutiny, is the only fully year 2000-ready operating system from Microsoft Corp. Other Microsoft OSes aren't quite there yet, even though company officials describe the current Windows 95, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and Windows NT 4.0 releases as "compliant, with minor issues." The company earlier had said its 32-bit operating systems were ready for 2000.
DEA eyes global NT network
The Drug Enforcement Administration, one of few federal agencies that are opening new offices, has set out to build a 10,000-seat network running Microsoft Windows NT. Congress and the Justice Department agreed last year on special funding for the network, said Ned Goldberg, chief of operations and support in the DEA Office of Information Systems.
Nuke systems get $2.5b in race against time
The Clinton administration considers numerical simulation so important to nuclear safety and reliability that it plans to spend nearly $2.5 billion on development through 2004. Energy Department managers in charge of the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative see it as a race against time. The scientists who designed the nation's nuclear weapons are aging right along with the weapons, said Gilbert Weigand, deputy assistant secretary for strategic computing and simulation.
Tool identifies risky date code
Visual 2000 is the best analytical tool the Army Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command has found for testing application code at its combat training centers, STRICOM project director Mark Jozwiak said. "Now we know where the broken modules are," Jozwiak said. The Visual 2000 tool from McCabe & Associates Inc. of Columbia, Md., is a test-coverage analyzer that identifies the high-risk modules within applications. The information lets the Army and other agencies design tests that
IRS musters IT to snare cheats
After eight years of preparation, the IRS last week loaded 6 million tax records into a data warehouse that will fundamentally change the way the service deals with errant taxpayers. IRS compliance officials are counting on a Teradata warehouse server from NCR Corp. of Dayton, Ohio, to help them through the agency's reorganization. The warehouse is a component of the tax systems modernization plan.
VA strikes gold, stores agencies' data in old mine
Veterans Affairs Department officials see no decline in the government's demand for off-site storage, in spite of and partly because of digital technologies. The VA Office of Information Resources Management (OIRM) runs a successful business storing not just government-generated paper and microform records but also tapes, floppy diskettes and CD-ROM disks.
Analytical tool tests app code
NEW YORK--Visual 2000 was the best analytical tool the Army Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command has found for testing application code at its combat training centers, STRICOM project director Mark Jozwiak said at a year 2000 conference here last month. "Now we know where the broken modules are," Jozwiak said.
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