Default time zone

The Default time zone site parameter enables you to choose to use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) or the time zone of the Proficy Server for timestamps the Plant Applications services. The default value is the time zone of the Proficy Server.

IMPORTANT: You must have the latest Microsoft Windows updates installed to use UTC.

If you select UTC, a Time Zone option is added to the department properties, which will enable you to assign a time zone for each department in your plant model so that each department can be treated as an individual site.

IMPORTANT: If you select UTC, you must Proficy DataMart for your reporting solution. The Plant Applications Web Reporting is not supported. To contact a sales representative, please see https://digitalsupport.ge.com/.

To change this site parameter

  1. Log in to the Plant Applications Administrator.

You must have Administrator access to the Administrator security group to change site parameters.

  1. Expand Global Configuration.

  2. Right-click Administer Site Parameters and select Edit Site Parameters. The Site Parameter dialog box appears.

  3. Under Services, double-click Default time zone. The Edit Parameter dialog box appears.

NOTE: If you see the message, "[Coordinated Universal Time] not found in registry," you must install the latest Microsoft Windows updates.

  1. Select Coordinated Universal Time or the desired time zone from the Value list.

  2. Click the OK button to save your changes and to close the dialog box.

  3. Click the Close button to close the Site Parameters dialog box.

  4. After changing this parameter, on the Proficy Server, you must:

  1. Stop Proficy Server Manager

  2. Stop Proficy Server License Manager

  3. Start Proficy Server License Manager

  4. Start Proficy Server Manager

 

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) Considerations

Plant Applications 5.x supports Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as an option on a new installation of the Proficy Server. When you install a new Proficy Server, you can use the time zone of the server to store your data as you would in versions earlier than 5.0 or you can use the UTC option. The UTC option is required to support a Regional Server where plants span time zones. It is also required to support storage of time across the Daylight Saving Time (DST) boundary. UTC is similar to using GMT +0:00 as your time zone, with the exception that UTC does not acknowledge Daylight Saving Time. For example, GMT -6:00 is minus five hours from UTC, when adjusting for Daylight Saving Time. When you choose the UTC option, all the data is stored on your server in UTC time regardless of the time zone of the server.

Reporting and UTC

Plant Applications displays, such as Autolog, support UTC including displaying data across the DTS boundary. When data comes into a display, the timestamp is converted to the time zone of the client. For example, a test value with a UTC timestamp of 07:00:00 would be displayed with a timestamp of 02:00:00 on a client with a time zone of GMT -6:00 (assuming Daylight Saving Time). For data that crosses the Fall DST boundary, you will see multiple rows/columns, depending on the display, in the same time range. The rows/columns will be in order of UTC. For example, consider a time based Autolog display with columns every 30 minutes. Assuming your DST boundary is at 2:00 AM, the first 1:30 AM column in Autolog will be from before 2:00 AM and the second 1:30 AM column will be from after the DST boundary.

UTC-enabled standard reports are scheduled to be supported as part of the first SIM for this version of Plant Applications. The SIM is expected to be out within few months of the initial release of Plant Applications 5.0, and a UTC-enabled Excel Add-in is expected to follow soon after. For the initial release of Plant Applications 5.0, our standard reports, including the Add-in for Excel, do not support UTC.

NOTE: If you have custom reports, they will need to be rewritten if you wish to use UTC.

Upgrading Plant Applications to use UTC

There is no automated upgrade path to use UTC on an existing Plant Applications installation. Therefore, we are providing the following manual options for you to consider, if you decide to upgrade to using UTC on an existing database. We are unable to go through all the scenarios or provide the technical details of how to implement them; these are just options to consider. With both options you must first make a copy of your production database.

IMPORTANT: Before proceeding, it is important to understand that these options require advanced knowledge of both SQL Server and Plant Applications.

IMPORTANT: Either option must be fully tested before implementing in a production environment.

Option 1: Create a gap in your data

You must create a gap in your data between the last timestamp recorded at local server time and the first timestamp recorded when you switch to UTC.

  1. Create a copy of your production database. After you have tested this option, you can use the copy of your production database as a backup or for reporting, while you wait for the new UTC database to be populated.

  2. Do one of the following:

  3. If your server time is -GMT, you can simply switch to UTC because the gap is created automatically when you switch to UTC time.

Example

If you are at GMT -5:00 and your last data was recorded at 14:22, when you switch to UTC (GMT) the data is stored at 19:22, creating a gap in your data of five hours.

  • If you are +GMT, wait until the UTC time is newer than your last time stamp in the database. This is to prevent data from being overwritten.

Example

If you are at GMT +3:00 and your last data was recorded at 11:00:00, you can shut down the server, wait for four hours and switch to UTC. Your data will be stored at 12:00:00, providing a one hour gap.

  1. Perform the Move Server procedure. See Knowledgebase article KB5427 on our Web site: https://digitalsupport.ge.com.

Option 2: Eliminate the runtime data from the copy of your database

  1. Create a copy of your production database. After you have tested this option, you can use the copy of your production database as a backup or for reporting, while you wait for the new UTC database to be populated.

  2. Perform the Move Server procedure, along with the optional truncate runtime data procedure. See Knowledgebase article KB5427 on our Web site: https://digitalsupport.ge.com.

NOTE: The Move Server document will be updated to include the truncate runtime data procedure by Q4 2010.