UCI System Administrators have been busy getting ready for year 2000 (Y2K) and the associated software “bugs” we have all been hearing about in the media. NACS’ Distributed Computing Support (DCS) group is no exception.
DCS has reviewed the 260+ UNIX systems and servers it supports and has identified those that are not considered “Y2K compliant” by their Operating System (OS) vendors. Approximately one-third of DCS-supported systems still require an OS upgrade to make them Y2K compliant (about 30 others have been upgraded in recent months). It is hard to say whether or not an upgrade of a given system is absolutely required, as some Y2K problems have limited impact and may not affect a work-group’s particular use. However, vendors make no promises unless compliant software versions are installed.
Systems running Digital UNIX (DU) 4.0d, DU 4.0e, Irix 6.5.3, Red Hat Intel Linux 5.1, Solaris 2.6, or Solaris 7 are compliant. DU 4.0d and Solaris 2.6 are compliant with the patches that DCS has already applied. DCS is working on upgrading systems running other OS versions, but it is a large task that DCS will be busy with for the rest of the year or longer. If you are the owner of a system that needs to be upgraded, you may contact DCS to review your upgrade schedule.
In addition to Y2K issues in operating systems, application software that is important to end-users must be checked for Y2K compliance. Contact your software vendor for more information, or DCS for general advice.
For more information on Y2K efforts, contact DCS (DCS@UCI.EDU), or see: