GSIS speaks

Last week, we featured three readers who sent in their views on the BizLinks column, “GSIS’s Big Bugs,” that appeared last June 12. This has triggered more reactions, including from Ella E. Valencerina, GSIS vice president for Public Relations and Communications. Here is what she says in her letter.

“Your readers raised valid points and reasonable suggestions for solutions to the ongoing problems of the Government Service Insurance System with the IBM’s database management software, DB2. It might interest them to know, however, that most of what they have proposed, we have already considered. Still, we find ourselves in this mess.

“When the GSIS’s system crashed last March 30, the GSIS found it prudent for its suppliers – particularly Questronix, which is IBM’s business partner, and SAP – to investigate the root cause of problem. But when they came back with the report, nearly three months after the first crash, they did not point to personnel or hardware. They pointed to the IBM database software.

“In a May 15 letter to the GSIS, Questronix director for Business Solutions, Mr. Bert L. Bartolome, citing the findings of IBM’s own laboratories in Toronto, Canada on the ‘root cause’ of GSIS systems crash, wrote:

“‘There is a problem in the calculation of a new extent in table spaces larger than 2 TB (terabytes) and with 16 K (kilobytes) page size. Under these conditions, the calculation runs into an overflow. The overflow caused (IBM) DB2 to lose certain information in the leading byte and data may end up in the wrong table, resulting in subsequent page corruptions.”

“Curiously, Questronix wrote in the same letter:

“‘We are currently awaiting the commitment of IBM Labs when the special build will be available. The fix will make the address of any new extent in such table spaces greater than 2TB with page size of 16K will be calculated correctly, hence not causing page corruption any longer.”

“The fact that IBM is attempting to come up with a fix only shows that there is a problem with the software.

Same admission

“Team Synergia, Inc., the software maintenance provider of the GSIS, has declared that it abides by the official report of Questronix. Even Mr. Juergen Reinhardt of the SAP Active Global Support also concurred to the same report in an official meeting with GSIS executives.

“Bear in mind that none of these findings came from the GSIS. The admission came from Questronix, Team Synergia, SAP, and even IBM. The actions the GSIS took were merely in response to the information relayed by these local and foreign IT giants.

“Reader Jester Joe opined that suing IBM should be the GSIS’s last priority. We agree. That is why for three months since the first crash, the GSIS has been begging Questronix and IBM to solve the problem they have caused.

“The GSIS only went public with its call when nothing concrete came out of these requests. When all these fell on deaf ears, the GSIS was forced to file a case against Questronix and IBM.

“We thought three months of seeing our members and pensioners languishing in the slow processing of loans and claims were enough to go to court.

“If you know that you were supplied with a defective product, would you just sit still and wait for them to provide you with a solution, even after months of fruitless waiting? Would you not have done what we did?”

Letter sender challenged

We find the letter of Eunice Gabrielle Marcelo taunting and questioning what our featured reader in the previous column said. In the interest of hearing all sides, we are featuring Eunice’s views, as follows:

“That must be a record of sort, for a mere ‘reader’ to be allotted by Mr. Rey Gamboa 17 paragraphs or about 80 percent of his column space in The Star last July 6. First off, it stretches believability that the ‘letter sender’ which Mr. Gamboa quoted verbatim was not a paid hack of IBM.

“The letter-sender claimed he’s never been an IBM employee, and yet he parroted every line, argument and faulty reasoning that had been expressed by IBM in public to turn its back on its responsibility to fix the faulty software it sold to the GSIS.

“If the letter-sender is really a 30-year IT consultant as he claimed himself to be, then he would have known that his claim that one needs a technical support contract with a computer firm like IBM to get technical support is hogwash.

“Any buyer of Microsoft software or any computer product for that matter knows for a fact that technical support is a given and is a responsibility by the manufacturer and seller without the need for a contract.

Automatic technical support

“If, for example, you buy a Microsoft Vista software, you need only register the product you buy as you install it and, presto, technical support is provided you free of charge. Toll free numbers are even provided customers precisely so they can get technical support.

“Technical support, especially to big clients like corporations, also takes the form of actual visits by technical support personnel. The fact of the matter is that the GSIS paid IBM millions of pesos of our money through its dealer Questronix, and it was IBM which pocketed that money.

“As per news account, IBM’s own laboratory had admitted that the DB2 was at fault for the GSIS system crash last March and this being the case, the letter-sender cannot blame the hardware used selected by IBM’s dealer Questronix as platform.

“I just hope that Mr. Gamboa would also find space for this brief rejoinder because we cannot allow anyone who claims to be an IT expert to mislead our people.”

Readers are most welcome to send their views and comments on issues being featured by this column. Rest assured that your comments, contrary or otherwise, to my views shall have space in this column.

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Should you wish to share any insi`ghts, write me at Link Edge, 25^th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.