Tool of the Month

Daylight Saving Time: How to Patch Your Network Today
By All Covered

Follow these guidelines to keep your business running smoothly.

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, starting in 2007. As such, Daylight Saving Time in the United States and Canada will start three weeks earlier (2:00 A.M. on the second Sunday in March) and will end one week later (2:00 A.M. on the first Sunday in November). All computer systems and electronics will have to be updated to reflect this change; otherwise their time will not be accurate. Daylight Saving Time (DST) starts March 11th this year.

For operating systems, updating Daylight Saving Time is not always an automatic process.

Microsoft:
The new DST rules will be released as an Automatic Update for Windows XP SP2 and Vista systems
Updates will NOT be released for Windows 2000 SP4, XP SP1 and earlier systems. There are patches available for these applications, but they are “unsupported” from Microsoft.

For additional information, refer to: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst

Novell:
A patch for Novell systems is available: http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?/2974702.htm

Macintosh:
OS 10.4 updates can be found at:

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1048comboupdateppc.html
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1048comboupdateintel.html
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxserver1048comboupdateppc.html
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxserver1048updateuniversal.html

OS 10.3 and earlier: No official patch out yet

Linux:
Updates are available for all of the major platforms, either as a patch or as a manual process http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/wiki/DST_Time_Change_Issues
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_80_7909.shtm

When you begin patching systems for the changes to Daylight Saving Time, please patch systems in the following order

1. Patch the workstations first
2. Patch your Front End systems (OWA, IIS, Webservers)
3. Patch your Back End systems (Mail, SQL, GP)
   1. If you have it clustered, patch the passive node first, then failover
4. If you have Bridgehead Servers, patch them also to keep everything in line
5. For Blackberry, Goodlink, Treo, Palm or other mobile solutions, talk with the vendor, but these solutions will also require that your local mail server be patched properly

This article was provided by All Covered, the leading Technology Services Partner for Small Business. For more information on All Covered’s services, please call 888-309-3999, or go to www.allcovered.com.