ABSTRACT

Mr Leung Woon-yin

Asst Director (Technical & Planning) Civil Aviation Department

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Views on "2K Contingency Planning"

Whilst every effort has been exerted by various organisations to remediate, test and verify their computer systems for Y2K compliance, there still remains a risk of disruption to the computer operations through hidden bugs, presence of embedded chips, difficulty in simulating the real life operational scenario and/or problems arising from other external systems. To minimize such risk, contingency plan and/or backup measure will be essential. In fact, a good contingency plan should cover two scenarios, i.e. one on those systems that cannot meet Y2K compliance by a latest acceptable target date, and the other on those systems critical to the operations of the organisation even though they have achieved Y2K compliance. Again the contingency plan must be simple and easily administered, and at the same time it must be able to maintain a reasonable level of service. As an illustration, the work done by the Civil Aviation Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government will be quoted with respect to the establishment and formulation of the contingency plan for the air traffic control operation for Hong Kong to ensure safety will not be compromised during the Y2K rollover.

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