Bracing the network for 2000: BANI prepares carriers for millennium headache

A new program from Bell Atlantic Network Integration will attack the issues surrounding the turn of the century from a carrier's point of view. The program will seek to avert problems associated with the change of date from a network perspective rather than an application perspective.

The Network 2000 Assessment Program, to be announced today by the Frazer, Pa.-based systems integrator, will draw upon a database of more than 800 network devices, their reactions to the turn of the century and possible remedies to avert problems.

Computer experts have forecasted a host of troubles for Jan. 1, 2000, as computers' clocks worldwide roll over from the year "99" to the year "00," which could significantly disrupt the interactions of time-sensitive applications and embedded systems. The cost worldwide of fighting this built-in bug is estimated at anywhere from $52 billion by British investment bank BZW to $3.6 trillion by Boston-based Software Productivity Research.

Fortunately, many carriers have already begun updating their software to deal with the 2000 issue, but "a lot of people have been thinking about this from an applications point of view," said Art Dolimpio, director of marketing development at BANI. "Unfortunately, most of them aren't paying attention to the components that are less-visible that reside in the network."

These network components-switches, routers and other basic network devices-are systems in themselves, said Dolimpio. "The irony is that if the network isn't made 2000-compliant, it really won't matter if the applications are year 2000-compliant because they'll have no working infrastructure to operate over."

The BANI approach draws from a database of the characteristics of network hardware products that the company has been compiling over the past few years. The database enables the company to examine the network makeup of a service provider's infrastructure, determine the depths of any possible problems and create plans to make the network entirely 2000-compliant.

To make the program work, carriers need to have a comprehensive inventory of their network assets, Dolimpio said.

At that point, carriers can decide how they wish to approach the 2000 issue. BANI will have software fixes for some network components, but other systems will have to be replaced, which is not necessarily a bad thing, even for frugal carriers.

"If all you do is counter the 'Millennium Bug,' you'll be spending a lot of money just so that on Jan. 1, 2000, you can do exactly what you were able to do Dec. 31, 1999," said Dolimpio. " Instead of seeing this as a network-threatening problem, people should realize it's an ideal motivation to make some of the upgrades that could make their networks more efficient."