Y3K? Get Ready for March 11

One of the big fears when I worked for IBM-GSDC in the late 1990's was Y2K.

Something heralded as a major problem from the tops of mountains and rooftops.

It just so happened that by the time 1999 rolled around I was the Information Management Officer (even though I was enlisted) for my unit at Ft Lewis.

I took the conservative road. Back up everything, and wait it out.
Worked pretty well at the time.

This new problem however could be more interesting. And thats the Daylight Savings Bug. Which isn't really a bug. It's just a fact that when politicians change something thats been a standard since 1916, it throws ...oh......every computer system, from VCR's to PC's in to a tail spin

But how serious is this problem?

Lets take a look! or the first time, daylight-saving time will kick off three weeks early this year, on March 11, and end a week later, on Nov. 4. Congress approved the changes as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 in a bid to conserve electricity by extending daylight-saving time for a month. Seemed harmless.

But, if no steps are taken, the shift could throw off everything from videocassette recorders and computers to surgery schedules and multimillion-dollar stock trades.

"It's going to be a pain," says Gartner analyst Cameron Haight. "But it's certainly not a Y2K-style event."

The Y2K, or Year 2000, bug put computers at risk of shutting down after Dec. 31, 1999, if they read 2000 as 1900. The earlier onset of daylight-saving time is far less ominous. For consumers, any gadget with a clock that adjusts for daylight time must be manually changed, including VCRs and climate-control systems that scale back at night.

Other devices whose clocks are set by a network server, such as cable set-top boxes and most cellphones, should be automatically modified by the service provider.

Business's however, are going to be the problem.

Thin Client networks especially will be affected. ThinClients are, essentially, smaller versions of what used to be called "dummy terminals". They pull their operating system, and information from a server. Most Cash Registers and Point of Sale machines for major retailers work on this frame work, and a lot of companies use it as a cheaper, more secure system for employee's.

Unfortunately because they pull that data from a server, all of their systems will match the same time as the server. Sending back ups off schedule and with no fixes, electronic calendars on Microsoft's nearly ubiquitous Windows operating system will send notices an hour late, resulting in missed meetings. For most businesses and consumers with the latest version of Windows XP, an update to head off such slip-ups will automatically take place Feb. 13. Other patches, such as to correct wrongly entered meeting times, must be downloaded. Novell Groupwise is also expecting some serious issue's.

The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by the U.S. Congress July, 2005, extended Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the U.S. by approximately four weeks. As a result, beginning in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier on March 11, 2007, and end one week later on November 4, 2007, resulting in a new DST period that is four weeks longer than previously observed.

Microsoft has set up a two small help site's to assist user's but it may not be enough.

Businesses face other minefields. Stock trades set to occur at certain times could happen late, costing millions. Buildings that unlock at 7 a.m. could stay shuttered. Airline monitors could flash wrong departure times. For instance, if you synchronize your Windows Smartphone with Microsoft Exchange, and you want your calendar reminders to work, plan on applying patches or fixes to Windows XP, Windows 2003, Exchange 2003 & Windows Mobile. Otherwise, you may be late for that all-important TPS meeting.

For IT, that means every software and hardware system relying on time stamps should now be checked, evaluated and tested -- and, if need be, patched with software updates or modified to work properly. But with a wide range of security issues, compliance requirements, spam-fighting efforts and other concerns already on their to-do lists, many IT administrators are only now evaluating what the DST change will mean and how they need to respond.  For instance, some multiprocessor computers running Windows NT 4.0 have trouble adjusting to DST. . In Windows Millennium Edition, the operating systems' DST adjustment accidentally reset HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) wallpaper background images to a bitmap file.

Gartner Inc. issued a statement today urging companies to take the issue seriously, saying "disruptions at an IT infrastructure and application level are likely" and "will have significant implications for organizations around the world." The Stamford, Conn.-based research firm said interruptions could affect calendaring applications, billing software and security programs as well as travel and trading schedules.

"This is a minor problem compared to the big code changes required in the recent past for issues like Y2k or the euro conversion," said Will Cappelli, an analyst at Gartner. "However, significant business damage and liabilities, as well as nuisance, could occur from applications performing their processing at the incorrect time if organizations do nothing."

In the meantime, the clock is ticking.

Complicating the effort is the fact that not all vendors have said whether and how their software and hardware might be affected.

On a global scale, the U.S. is practically a model of stability when it comes to DST scheduling. Sure, a few localities eschew changing their clocks -- including all of Hawaii, parts of Indiana, and most of Arizona (the state opted out, while the Navajo Nation opted in) -- but the actual DST dates are fixed nationwide and haven't been changed since 1987. Brazil changes its DST dates every year, as did Israel until this year. Countries have occasionally adjusted their DST schedules on the fly to accommodate special events. Chile delayed its changeover date for a visit from the Pope in April 1987, and Sydney started DST early in 2000 when it hosted the Olympics. That relatively last-minute change spawned more than a half-dozen Microsoft tech support articles.

But Don't expect Microsoft or other companies to come running to your rescue...

"If they're running systems that are not auto-updated, they'll have to be cognizant to make those changes themselves," says Mike Wendy, a representative for the Computing Technology Industry Association. "That will involve a modicum of some sort of education to the community to ensure that that occurs."

Even Treo's are expecting problems...but they have a fix. In short, Palm recommends that you turn off Network Time and that you make manual time zone changes when you travel with your smartphone. All events created on your smartphone will then be created with time zone information which will change as you would expect when DST events occur twice a year in most regions.

Oracle is providing two patches, one for the JVM and one for the time zone files. Each patch has a different set of requirements on when to implement it.
Like its operating system counterpart, Oracle's embedded Java engine uses embedded time zone information and is impacted by the new Daylight Time start and stop dates.Here's a snippet from one of Oracle's white papers:

JVM patch - for all Oracle versions 8.1.7, 9.x, 10.x (database only):
If you have the Oracle JVM installed you are advised to apply the JVM patch. See section "JVM Fixes" below for more details.

The problem is that a lot of shops install the Oracle JVM when they install the database but don't run Java programs in Oracle. Oracle Grid Control agents must have their times synchronized with the operating system. If not, the agents will not start. Both the O/S and agents must be patched or not-patched in order for Grid Control Agents to work. Oracle has supplied a manual work-around in case of emergency. The repository databases must also be patched.

I have a list of major vendors here, in case you need to address something specifically, however for now I'm once again taking the conservative road.

Back everything up. Apply Patches when available, and wait it out.

Finally, don’t forget firewalls, routers, switches, NTP appliances, time clocks, PBX systems, IVR/ACD systems, cell phones, PDAs, photo copiers, fax machines, and all the other devices on your network that recognize or require time/date to operate properly. All of these will likely need either patches or manual fixes to facilitate the change.

• Microsoft Overview - microsoft.com
• Microsoft Windows Registry Hack - microsoft.com
• Microsoft Windows Mobile Hack - microsoft.com
• Microsoft Windows XP & 2003 - microsoft.com
• Microsoft Exchange - microsoft.com
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM - microsoft.com
• Sun Solaris - sun.com
• Sun Java - sun.com
• IBM - ibm.com
• IBM iSeriesV5R3 PTF SI24906 - ibm.com
• IBM Lotus Notes & Domino - ibm.com
• Novell Netware - novell.com
• Novell Groupwise - novell.com
• Apple OSX - apple.com
• Cisco IOS Workaround – “clock summer-time PDT recurring 2 Sun Mar 2:00 1 Sun Nov 2:00”
• Cisco IOS Release 12.4(11)XJ - cisco.com
• RedHat RHEL 4 - redhat.com
• Ubuntu tzdata - ubuntu.com
• Fortinet - forticare.com
• Juniper - juniper.net
• Oracle 11i - oracle.com
• MySQL - mysql.com
• PostgreSQL - postgresql.org
• WordPress Plugin - suominen.com