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AMS REALTIME Software Products and the Year 2000 (Y2K) Issue
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The Year 2000 problem is only experienced by those products that store
dates as years, months and days and then only allocated two digits
for the year. This does not apply to any Advanced Management Solutions
code.
More information is available by clicking on a link below or call:
| USA: |
(800) 397-6829 or (909) 793-0111 |
| UK & International: |
+44 (0)118 9605 800 |
If you have any further questions, please provide these to your account
manager and we will be happy to address them, or contact us at info@amsusa.com.
What
is Advanced Management Solutions’ position on the Year 2000 issue?
Advanced Management Solutions (AMS) products have been designed
for use in the year 2000 and well beyond. AMS recognizes the importance
of client confidence that AMS REALTIME products will operate correctly
after December 31, 1999. The year 2000 problem is only experienced
by products which store dates as years, months and days and then
only allocated two digits for the year. This does not apply to any
Advanced Management Solutions code.
Date information in the AMS REALTIME products is stored in a format
based on a binary number of days (and minutes) from a base date
in 1960. As a consequence the year 2000 is not a special case in
processing and manipulation of data. The potential problem of Year
2000 was identified from the development of the first AMS products
in 1983 and we designed our product architecture to avoid the issue.
This design strategy was incorporated for all AMS REALTIME products,
so the products will correctly process, calculate, compare and sequence
date data from, into and between the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries, including leap years.
Our software is used to plan and control projects which can last
from less than one day to many years in duration. The software therefore must
handle dates beyond the end of this century and will be used after
the end of the twentieth century. AMS REALTIME software currently
handles project and activity dates up to the end of the year 2047.
Within the next few major releases, we expect to extend the AMS
REALTIME products’ ability to handle dates until the 23rd century.
As described above, we have ensured that dates which span the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries have been taken into account in our software
development from the start. We have also undertaken testing and
this used data including dates beyond the end of this century. We
also set the system date forward to ensure that our software still
behaved correctly. No specific fixes were needed to ensure correct
operation of AMS products.
Does
this mean that Advanced Management Solutions has certified its products
as Year 2000 Compliant?
There are different definitions of Year 2000 Compliancy so it is
not possible to universally certify any software product. However,
our products will function correctly in the 21st century in accordance
with the following definition. This definition of year 2000 compliance
conforms to the British Standards Institute's PD2000-1 specification.
AMS REALTIME software products will correctly process, calculate,
compare and sequence date data from, into and between the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries, including leap years. Neither performance
nor functionality is affected by dates prior to, during and after
the year 2000.
In particular:
- Rule 1 -- No value for current date will cause any interruption
in operation.
- Rule 2 -- Date-based functionality will behave consistently
for dates prior to, during and after year 2000.
- Rule 3 -- In all interfaces and data storage, the century in
any date will be specified either explicitly or by unambiguous
algorithms or inferencing rules.
- Rule 4 -- Year 2000 will be recognized as a leap year.
How
is Schedule Publisher affected by Year 2000?
Schedule Publisher was replaced in 1997 by AMS REALTIME Projects
Version 5.0. Users who wish to have a supported AMS product should
upgrade to the latest version of AMS REALTIME Projects. While Schedule
Publisher was designed to operate in the 21st century no testing
on this product has taken place or will be undertaken. If any issues
are found, these will be fixed in the latest supported version of
AMS REALTIME Projects.
How
is Advanced Management Solutions ensuring compliance of its suppliers?
AMS products do not rely directly on code supplied by third parties.
However, our products integrate with products are from vendors such
as Microsoft and Oracle who either already have ensured, or are
working to ensure, correct operation of their products after 1999.
Have
any problems been reported with Advanced Management Solutions software
in processing dates after 1999?
No clients have reported any problems in processing dates beyond
1999. We have also undergone tests ourselves and additionally performed
tests with the system date at January 2000 without any problems.
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