Planning for Daylight Saving Time Changes in 2007
Starting in the spring of 2007, Daylight Saving Time (DST) start and end dates for the United States will transition to comply with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. DST dates in the United States will start three weeks earlier (the second Sunday in March) and will end one week later (the first Sunday in November). It is important to note that not all states observe daylight saving time. Also, many other countries observe some form of "summer time", but they do not necessarily change their clocks on the same dates as the majority of states in the U.S.
While the change in daylight saving time applies to U.S. and Canada, the change may affect users based outside of these countries.
- Mexico will not be following the new DST 2007 rules with the U.S. and Canada. Accordingly, systems configured to use U.S. time zones (for example, Pacific Time) will need to change their system configurations to use the Mexico time zones.
- Companies or organizations with operations, customers, or vendors based in the U.S. or Canada may be affected.
- Companies or organizations that interact or integrate with systems that are based in the U.S. or Canada or rely on date/time calculations may be affected.
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This change could potentially affect any computing product or software that incorporates a timekeeping function.Impacts to Your Dell Systems
There is no hardware or BIOS impact to Dell servers, workstations, desktops and notebooks as a result of this DST change.
However, the Operating System (OS) will be impacted, and our OS vendors have or will have solutions in place prior to the transition dates.
DRAC Hardware
DRAC III and DRAC4 – DRAC III and DRAC 4 get time information from the OS, so if the OS changes time, so does the DRAC.
DRAC 5 - DRAC 5 has an internal clock. The DRAC does not automatically adjust for daylight savings time. The customer must issue a RACADM command to change to daylight savings time in the spring and then issue another command to return to standard time in the fall. This does not change with the date changes that Congress enacted. Below are the actual RACADM command lines that would be used in a script to make the changes.
Racadm config –g cfgRacTuning –o cfgRacTuneDaylightOffset 60
Racadm config –g cfgRacTuning –o cfgRacTuneDaylightOffset 0
Operating Systems
Microsoft will be producing an update for Microsoft products affected by the new United States Daylight Saving Time transition dates. These updates will be released through a combination of channels including Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS), hotfixes incorporated in Knowledge Base articles, Windows Update, Microsoft Update, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), and the Microsoft Download Center.
Effective February 5, 2007 all Dell PowerEdge™ Servers purchased with an OEM factory install of the following Microsoft Operating Systems will ship with the Microsoft DST hot fix applied to the operating system:
- Windows® Server 2003, Web Edition,
- Windows ServerTM 2003 R2, Standard Edition (32 & 64 bit versions)
- Windows ServerTM 2003 R2, 32-bit Enterprise Edition (32 & 64 bit versions)
- Windows® Small Business Server 2003 R2 Standard &Premium Editions
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For the most current information from Microsoft on the DST update visit,
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx
The following url provides links to Microsoft® Windows VistaTM , XP, or 2000 patches
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?docid=27690C35ED61F3B4E040A68F5B2848C5&c=us&l=en&s=dhs
All Linux operating systems released an updated time zone data file just after the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed, and it is already a part of the Linux kernel.
Red Hat
Updates to Red Hat systems were provided to users earlier this year, and included:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 users must update glibc
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4 users must update the tzdata package.
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For the most current information from Red Hat on the DST update visit,
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_80_7909.shtm SUSE Novell
Novell development has already released service packs or maintenance updates for the following products:
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 SP4
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 SP3 and Novell Linux Desktop 9 SP3
- SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 (Desktop and Server)
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Service packs and maintenance updates can be retrieved from Novell Customer Center or through the usual update mechanisms. For the most current information from Novell on the DST update visit,
https://secure-support.novell.com/KanisaPlatform/Publishing/607/3853518_f.SAL_Public.html
VMware
VMware has produced and released updates to address the Daylight Savings Time change in their VMware ESX Server 2.x and VMware ESX Server 3.0.x operating systems.
More information from VMware can be found at the following link.
http://kb.vmware.com/vmtnkb/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=8695824&sliceId=SAL_Public&dialogID=10171220&stateId=0%200%2010163843&doctag=Author,%20KB%20Article
Systems Management Partners
Altiris:
http://kb.altiris.com/display/2/kb/article.asp?aid=32402&n=1&s=1 links to an article in the Altiris Knowledgebase that outlines their findings on how DST will affect their products.
BMC:
http://www.bmc.com/supportu/DST2007 links to general information on DST as well as detailed information for each BMC product.
Computer Associates:
http://supportconnectw.ca.com/public/ca_common_docs/dst_pubstatement.asp provides CA’s statement on DST.
http://supportconnectw.ca.com/public/ca_common_docs/dst_prodmatrix.pdf links to a CA product matrix with current information regarding unaffected CA products.
http://www3.ca.com/udm/upm/links to existing Unicenter patches.
Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx has the most current information from Microsoft with Knowledge Base articles, products affected and support paths.
LANDesk:
http://kb.landesk.com/article.asp?article=3978&p=5 links to a bulletin from LANDesk regarding the testing and results in relation to DST and their products.
Novell:
https://secure-support.novell.com/KanisaPlatform/Publishing/152/3642878_f.SAL_Public.html provides details on how Novell ZENworks products will accommodate the 2007 time zone change.
