For Immediate Release
November 18, 1999
#z99-Y2Ka

"FOLLOW THE SUN" CDC participates in state's effort to track Y2K

When the millennium first reaches land – in Auckland, New Zealand – the State of California will be there to see what happens and report back to those of us waiting anxiously back home.

No, this is not the long arm of government. It is a very practical approach to help the nation’s largest state government know exactly what is happening to computers, water systems, telephones, mass transit, police and fire calls, hospitals and other aspects of the infrastructure.

“The idea is that as soon as the first midnight in the world hits, it’s going to be the gauge that the world will go by,” says Marty Jones, Chief of Emergency Operations with the California Department of Corrections.  “Fortunately, it starts with New Zealand and Australia, two countries with western infrastructures, which will be particularly helpful,” says Jones.

The effort known as “Follow the Sun,” came out of Gov. Davis’ Y2K Business Council, a group composed of representatives of major corporations that do business or are headquartered in the Golden State. These corporations were planning global monitoring themselves and realized the benefits of working with the state in a coordinated strategy. (See sidebar: “The Governor’s Y2K Business Council.”)

An example of the synergy at work here is Cisco Systems, the San Jose-based leader in the production of network routing devices.

“We use more than 100 Cisco routers which enable information to be routed from one network to another on the basis of its intended destination, an essential piece of programmable hardware for our e-mail and mission critical applications,” says Dee Smith, who is client services manager in ISD’s data center and serves as its liaison with the Continuity Planning for Business project. “It makes sense for us to know how they are performing throughout the world hours before midnight in California.”

Another relevant example for the department is the participation of computer giant Hewlett Packard in this early-warning strategy. The department has more than 130 of HP’s powerful model 3000s and 9000s in parole offices and institutions around the state, as well as a few in its Aerojet data center. These systems are in place around the world, so watching through Follow the Sun will provide relevant information on how they will ride out the millennium.

Follow the Sun is the emergency preparedness component of the state’s massive Y2K effort, as well as a vital linkage with CDC’s multi-tier approach to Y2K. The department will be involved with Follow the Sun through its Emergency Operations Center that will link to the state’s main emergency operations center at the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

“This is our early warning indicator on what is happening throughout the world,” says Ken Okuhara, who leads the department’s Y2K Project Management Office. “It’s just another tool we’re using to help ensure that we can fulfill our mission with safety and security in mind.”

Follow the Sun compliments the Department’s other Y2K initiatives that have been the focus of a major investment in staff and resources to ensure complete preparation for Y2K. In addition to the Department’s benefits from Follow the Sun, other initiatives that complete the program include remediation of all mission critical information technology (IT), desktop and embedded systems and continuity planning for business. These efforts completed their readiness phase by late-October and then moved into the final preparations for monitoring and responding to any Y2K issues that develop at the turn of the century.

The Governor’s Y2K Business Council

Last spring members of Gov. Gray Davis’ Year 2000 Business Council began looking at different approaches corporations would be using to monitor the dawning of the millennium at their outposts around the world. This is where the concept of using field offices as a global early warning network began.

Members of the Governor’s Y2K Business Council represent the following corporations: