Prioritizing: Identifying Your Critical Computers & Software

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This document offers a representative list of some of the most critical functions that may be performed on computers within your department. These are the types of functions that you must protect against disruption from Y2K problems.

You will need to give these computers - and their key software - priority. This typically means that you will find and resolve their Y2K problems first, before addressing any remaining problems or issues within your department. For more suggestions, see Decide what giving a computer "priority" means for your departmental efforts .

• Computers whose malfunctioning would cause health or safety problems.
  
  Examples include
  • Computers responsible for the environmental health of humans or animals.
  • Computers which store biomedical data for humans or animals.
  • Computers which control and/or monitor potentially hazardous equipment or processes.
  • Computers which track hazardous materials or which provide access to information about such materials.
  • Computers responsible for physical security.
  
  
• Computers used in scientific research.
  
  Examples include:
  • Computers integrated with or attached to research equipment.
  • Computers on which research data is entered or stored.
  • Computers which analyze research data using statistics and mathematical programs, spreadsheets, databases, or other such programs.
  
  
• Computers used to maintain records relating to campus faculty, staff, and students.
  
  Examples include:
  • Computers used to access online student information systems.
  • Computers used to access the Human Resources Management System (HRMS), or other systems of the Berkeley Administrative Initiatives.
  • Computers which maintain departmental-level student, faculty, or employee records.
  
  
• Computers used for financial purposes.
  
  Examples include:
  • Computers used to analyze campus or departmental financial data via spreadsheets, databases, statistics programs, or data analysis tools.
  • Computers used to report financial data to agencies or institutions sponsoring funded research.
  • Computers used to access the Berkeley Financial System (BFS), or other systems of the Berkeley Administrative Initiatives .
  • Computers used to access the Campus Accounts and Receivables System (CARS).
  
  
• Server computers providing services critical to the functioning of your department, or which are relied upon by your customers elsewhere on campus or in the outside world.
  
  Examples include:
  • Computers offering shared databases.
  • Computers which are servers or offer "middleware" software components in client/server applications.
  • Computers running World Wide Web servers.
  • Computers which are used to share disks, printers, or other resources.
  • Computers which provide the current date and time as a service to other computers over a network.
  
  
• Computers which share date-containing data with other departmental, campus, or even outside agency computers that perform mission-critical functions. (Data sharing introduces the potential for propagating Y2K problems between computers.)
  
  Examples include:
  • Computers used to interactively enter date-containing data into shared databases.
  • Computers which periodically upload date-containing files which are imported into shared databases.
  • Computers acting as "clients" in client/server applications.
  • Computers which exchange spreadsheets, database files, or other date-containing files critical to the department's mission via attachments to e-mail messages, "Sneakernet" (carrying disks between computers), shared disks on file servers, or other methods. This category could potentially include home computers, whether campus- or personally-owned, which exchange date-containing data with critical campus computers.