The transition of statistical technology towards the year 2000: approach, issues and lessons learned

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Slater, Barbara | Law, Stephen^{; 1}

Affiliations: Statistics Canada, R.H. Coats Building, Ottawa K2B 5H9, Canada

Note: [1] Paper presented to the UN/ECE Meeting on the Management of Statistical Information Technology, Geneva, 1517 February 1999.

Abstract: The Year 2000 problem is real and if not addressed could affect all industries, all sectors and all countries. Ensuring that our statistical programs continue to operate without disruption in the period leading to and through the Year 2000 continues to be one of Statistics Canada's highest priorities. To resolve the Year 2000 date problems, Statistics Canada is working on three main fronts: – To ensure that systems are properly adapted and tested so that Statistics Canada can continue to supply the information required by its clients before, through and after the year 2000; – To alert data suppliers and partners to the issue and negotiate arrangements that will ensure that data exchanges will continue to function through the year 2000; – To take readings of the state of preparedness of Canadian businesses. On the first front, Statistics Canada initiated its management response in 1996 with the appointment of a full-time Year 2000 Co-ordinator together with a Steering Committee composed of senior departmental managers and a Working Group composed of project leaders. On completion of comprehensive inventory of the custom computer programs used in our statistical programs, the responsible line program managers developed a plan for the remediation or replacement of each application that was assessed as requiring attention. We have identified as departmental mission critical programs those that provide key current socio-economic indicators (such as the Consumer Price Index, Labour Force Survey, Gross Domestic Product, International Trade, the System of National Accounts plus its key feeder systems) and the systems related to internal pay and cash handling. A completion target date for the conversion and testing of mission critical applications has been set for the end of December 1998. Due to interdependencies between several mission critical applications and the sequencing of the testing, final testing for a small number of applications will likely not be completed until the first quarter of 1999. Other applications have a target date for conversion of mid 1999 and for testing of late 1999, but in many cases it has been practical to already convert and, in some cases, test these applications as well. Statistics Canada uses a diverse and rich computing environment including traditional mainframe and minicomputers and a variety of servers and workstations. Following an assessment of each of these computing environments, the commercial software products and the underlying network infrastructure, plans were developed and are now being implemented to ensure that the computing infrastructure continues operation uninterrrupted due to faulty date processing. On the second point, we continue to discuss mutual preparedness with other government departments, at all levels, on which we depend for a wide variety of data inputs. A communications plan is in place to alert our business respondents to the issue and negotiations are underway with key data providers regarding their continued provision of accurate and reliable data. On the last point, Statistics Canada published the results of Survey 1 and Survey 2 of the preparedness of Canadian businesses in the December 8, 1997 and July 6, 1998 editions of The Daily. Statistics Canada is planning to carry out a third survey for release in early 1999.

DOI: 10.3233/SJU-1999-16107

Journal: Statistical Journal of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 69-77, 1999