Field Notice: FN - 62888 - New Zealand Daylight Saving Time policy changes effective September 2007 - For Cisco Unity Express

August 29, 2007

NOTICE:

THIS FIELD NOTICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS AND DOES NOT IMPLY ANY KIND OF GUARANTEE OR WARRANTY, INCLUDING THE WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY. YOUR USE OF THE INFORMATION ON THE FIELD NOTICE OR MATERIALS LINKED FROM THE FIELD NOTICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. CISCO RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OR UPDATE THIS FIELD NOTICE AT ANY TIME.

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Products Affected

Products Affected	Comments
Cisco Unity Express	Cisco Unity Express (CUE) 3.2 and later are not impacted by this issue.

  

Problem Description

The operating systems of most Cisco products that support Daylight Saving Time (DST) have built in mechanisms to automatically change the times, based on current user-selected rules. Once the new DST is implemented, the time on devices that maintain time zone information will continue to change according to the old method, unless changes are made.

Background

On April 30th, 2007, the Minister of Internal Affairs issued a statement regarding a change in Daylight Saving Time policy for New Zealand. The change in policy has modified the start and end dates for Daylight Saving Time (DST). Beginning in 2007 and beyond, Daylight Saving Time in New Zealand will start on the last Sunday of September at 2 AM local time and end on the first Sunday of April at 3 AM local time.

Specifically for 2007-2008, Daylight Saving Time will begin at 2 AM local time on September 30th, 2007, and end at 3 AM local time on April 6th, 2008.

For more information, see the statement issued by the Minister of Internal Affairs:

Daylight saving to be extended

The previous Daylight Saving Time policy for New Zealand dictated that DST started on the first Sunday in October and ended on the third Sunday in March

Problem Symptoms

Impact to Networking Systems

Networking systems often make use of local time to mark logs, as well as to schedule certain events, such as IP SLA schedule starts, or the beginning or end of a time-based access-list.

In addition, inconsistencies between time zone definitions may impact event correlation systems as well as other management systems relating to problem escalation. Having accurately represented local time is a very big concern for most organizations. Local time may be reflected in logs and on phone displays. This is especially true of systems that require accurate time and time stamping for proper operations.

For networking systems, the clock or clock source is often derived from a trusted chronological source such as a private or public Atomic clock, often through Network Time Protocol (NTP), NTP communicates time in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), colloquially known as GMT, and thus is not impacted, nor is a workaround for statutory time zone changes. Local time definitions, including summertime settings are part of the configuration of most Cisco products.

Workaround/Solution

Workaround

On the last Sunday of September (September 30th for 2007) change the time zone to "Pacific/Tongatapu" (UTC/GMT +13 hours) by using the clock time zone cli wizard. Please note that you need to save and reload after making these changes.

On first Sunday in October (October 7 for 2007) you have to set the time zone back to "Pacific/Auckland" by using the same CLI commands.

On third Sunday in March (March 23 for 2008) you have to move ahead by changing the time zone to "Pacific/Tongatapu".

On first Sunday in April (April 6 for 2008) change back to your original time zone which is "Pacific/Auckland".

Cisco Unity Express may be manually updated using one of the following means:

Configuring the time zone from the CLI:

se-1-100-50-41(config)> clock timezone Please identify a location so that time zone rules can be set correctly. 
Please select a continent or ocean. 
1) Africa 4) Arctic Ocean 7) Australia 10) Pacific Ocean 
2) Americas 5) Asia 8) Europe 
3) Antarctica 6) Atlantic Ocean 9) Indian Ocean 
#? 10 
Please select a country. 
1) Chile 15) Northern Mariana Islands 
2) Cook Islands 16) Palau 
3) Ecuador 17) Papua New Guinea 
4) Fiji 18) Pitcairn 
5) French Polynesia 19) Samoa (American) 
6) Guam 20) Samoa (western) 
7) Kiribati 21) Solomon Islands 
8) Marshall Islands 22) Tokelau 
9) Micronesia 23) Tonga 
10) Nauru 24) Tuvalu 
11) New Caledonia 25) United States 
12) New Zealand 26) US minor outlying islands 
13) Niue 27) Vanuatu 
14) Norfolk Island 28) Wallis & Futuna 
#? 23 
The following information has been given: 
Tonga 
Therefore TZ='Pacific/Tongatapu' will be used. 
Is the above information OK? 
1) Yes 
2) No 
#? 1

Configuring the time zone from the GUI:

From the GUI, Select Administration > Network Time & Time Zone Settings.

Change the timezone to Pacific/Tongatapu

NOTE: A Save and Reload is required after making these changes.

Solution

Cisco Unity Express sets Daylight Saving Time automatically on the basis of the time zone, which is selected during the installation procedure or may be changed from the GUI.

CUE 3.2 (Available ~Q2 2008) will include the fix for the required New Zealand DST changes . Refer to:CSCsj75969 (registered customers only)

Impacted customers are encouraged to update Cisco Unity Express by downloading the software from theSoftware Center as soon as the fixed version becomes available.

DDTS

To follow the bug ID link below and see detailed bug information, you must be a registered user and you must be logged in.

DDTS	Description
CSCsj75969 (registered customers only)	Update DST for New Zealand on Service Engines such as AIM-CUE NM-CUE NM-NAM NM-CE

  

Revision History

Revision	Date	Comment
1.0	29-AUG-2007	Initial Public Release

  

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For More Information

If you require further assistance, or if you have any further questions regarding this field notice, please contact the Cisco Systems Technical Assistance Center (TAC) by one of the following methods:

• Open a service request on Cisco.com
• By email
• By telephone

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