Computer Associates, Information Analysis Introduce Powerful Tools for Year 2000 Independent Verification and Validation.

ISLANDIA, N.Y./FAIRFAX, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 8, 1998--

CA-Fix/2000-IV&V And UNICAST/2000-IV&V Provide A "Second Opinion"

On Accuracy Of Remediation For Year 2000 Projects

Companies To Host Teleconferences On Remediation And IV&V

Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) and Information Analysis Inc. (IAI) today announced the general availability of CA-Fix/2000 - IV&V and UNICAST/2000 - IV&V, a family of automated date remediation tools designed to help organizations verify and validate their Year 2000 compliance efforts. The products are available for a wide variety of COBOL environments.

Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) is emerging as a critical step in Year 2000 compliance projects. Many organizations that make date changes in their computer programs through internal or manual efforts cannot use the same methods to ascertain successful Year 2000 conversions. Products such as CA-Fix/2000 - IV&V and UNICAST/2000 - IV&V provide a "reality check" on whether such programs are, in fact, identifying and correcting dates appropriately.

"The most cost-effective way to ensure that applications are Year 2000-compliant is to verify and validate them using an independent system that is unbiased, automated and as different from the original system as practical," said Mark Stabler, senior vice president of CA's Year 2000 Business Unit. "Unlike testing, which verifies compliance by simulating future dates and data, IV&V examines the logic that processes that data to locate and identify missed date fields and invalid date processing logic."

As its name suggests, IV&V works independently of the logic-correction or remediation process. Ideally, the team, tools and even the methodology used for IV&V is as different as possible from that used to perform the remediation. The idea is to eliminate the possibility that any procedural flaws in the remediation process, or human error could invalidate the results of the IV&V process. Only by using a completely different approach can you eliminate this problem, and satisfy potential internal auditing issues.

"Due diligence demands Independent Verification and Validation of code that has been remediated for Year 2000 compliance," said Harris Miller, president, ITAA. "IV&V is essential to ensure that all the necessary year fields are identified and corrected before they cause critical systems to fail."

CA-Fix/2000-IV&V and UNICAST/2000-IV&V are available for the following COBOL environments: VSE, MVS, CA-IDMS, IBM 68, 74, and 85; Micro Focus, and UNISYS DMS1100 and 2200.

Brian Nimmo, IAI senior vice president, said IAI has chosen to focus on what the company saw as the most difficult computer environments. "These are the toughest cases," he said. "Organizations with Unisys COBOL environments, for example, should find this tool a major benefit to their compliance efforts. The alternative is to devote thousands of hours to remediating a program, reinstalling and testing it, and then finding it does not work properly. IV&V provides a higher level of confidence that date items in applications were correctly identified prior to lengthy testing."

"Millions of lines of mission-critical Unisys COBOL code need to be validated for Year 2000 compliance to ensure that these systems function correctly in the next millennium," said Susan Thomas, director, Unisys Worldwide TEAM2000. "UNICAST/2000-PC for Unisys COBOL offers a highly automated and language-intelligent process for validating and auditing the conversion process."

CA-Fix/2000 - IV&V and UNICAST/2000 - IV&V are components of Discovery 2000, a unique combination of software and services to help reduce the cost and achieve the success of Year 2000 initiatives. Discovery 2000 incorporates automated solutions for every phase of a Year 2000 effort - from initial portfolio assessment through code conversion and testing to final production turnover.

Experts on remediation and IV&V from both companies will host teleconferences on October 13 for clients using CA-IDMS and on October 15 for clients using Unisys COBOL. To register, call 1-888-4 2000YR in North America or contact a local CA office.

Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA), with headquarters in Islandia,N.Y., is the world leader in mission-critical business software. The company develops, licenses and supports more than 500 integrated products that include enterprise computing and information management, application development, manufacturing and financial applications. CA has over 11,000 people in 160 offices in 43 countries and had revenue of $4.7 billion in fiscal year 1998. CA can be reached by visiting www.cai.com, emailing [e-mail], or calling 1-516-342-5224.

Information Analysis Incorporated (www.infoa.com), headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, is a world-class provider of products and services for automated transition engineering of computer systems. IAI provides highly automated software and platform conversion, modernization and migration. Through its UNICAST/2000 product family, IAI provides clients the ability to achieve Year 2000 compliance in-house or off-site at IAI's or other certified solution factories.

All referenced product names are trademarks of their respective companies.