2007 Daylight Savings Time Compliance for NetBotz Branded Products

Issue:

2007 Daylight Savings Time Compliance for NetBotz Branded Products

Product Line:

NetBotz

Environment:

Any version

Cause:

January 25, 2007

Daylight Savings Time Overview (1) Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a system of handling the changing amounts of daylight throughout the year. The goal of DST is to maximize the daylight hours available during typical waking hours.

The United States has planned a change to its DST observance beginning in 2007. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates that DST will start on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November. In 2007, the start and stop dates will be March 11 and November 4, respectively. These dates are different from previous DST start and stop dates. In 2006, the dates were the first Sunday in April (April 2, 2006) and the last Sunday in October (October 29, 2006).

Some countries are still evaluating whether they will adopt the new rules for themselves. You should anticipate more changes in DST and time zone rules for countries that typically align with U.S. DST rules.



Resolution:

Changes to NetBotz Products
APC will be releasing two firmware releases coming by the end of February 2007; one for the V1 NetBotz appliances and one for the V2 NetBotz appliances to address the DST issue.

BotzWare for Version 1 Appliances:
Version 1.3.10 of the NetBotz Advanced View and NetBotz Firmware for Version 1 Appliances (Models 300, 300B, 310, 400) is being updated to handle the DST changes. This update incorporated changes in the firmware for the appliances as well as a patched JRE (Java Runtime Environment) for the Advanced View.

BotzWare for Version 2 Appliances:
Version 2.6.1 of the NetBotz Advanced View and NetBotz Firmware for Version 2 Appliances (Models 320, 420, 500) is being updated to handle the DST changes. The only change for the DST issue is a patched JRE for the Advanced View. However there are additional updates/fixes in BotzWare 2.6.1 that will be released as well.

Netbotz Central / ISX Central:
Version 2.5x of Netbotz Central will be updated to a version 2.5.2 for both the Central server as well as it's Console software. ISX Central 3.X does not have an issue with the change in DST

(1) Information courtesy of Sun Microsystems; http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Intl/USDST/