Daylight Savings Time Changes

[Joel Petsch]

Are there any changes to be made to Open VMS servers running 7.1 on a VAX to have the automatic Daylight Savings Time date change run on the new date in March 2007?

[Hoff]

Hello and Welcome to ITRC!

There is no ECO for OpenVMS VAX V7.1.

I do expect there are TZ changes. I don't know if they will affect your site. (Facts not in evidence and all.)

HP is not likely releasing an update for V7.1, as it is not a Prior Version Support (PVS) nor a Current Version Support (CVS) release.

The fastest solid fix is an upgrade to V7.3, where there is an ECO. You'll also get other current ECOs for OpenVMS VAX, and I'd not expect anything to be perturbed by this upgrade.

For OpenVMS DST in general, start here:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/dst.html

For background and related, read here:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1097157
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1096296
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1092084

You can read about the time and timekeeping (and pointers to the ECO area, and the Off By One Hour behavior, PVS and CVS, etc) here:
http://www.hoffmanlabs.com/vmsfaq/

For Java (not applicable to VAX), read here:
http://h18012.www1.hp.com/java/alpha/DST-US.html

The ECOs for various releases are here:
ftp://ftp.itrc.hp.com/

If you want to know with some degree of certainty if any of the rule changes will affect your operation, do test it. Look particularly for the off-by-one-hour bug discussed in the FAQ (which might crop up between the window from the old and new DST definitions).

Also look at the other recent discussions here in ITRC. Some of which are discussed above.

Full disclosure: HoffmanLabs provides DST and other OpenVMS services.

Stephen Hoffman
HoffmanLabs