Last-minute DST Patches Create Headaches for Exchange Admins
104531
Microsoft's technical support personnel only just this week discovered that its various patches for Windows, Exchange Server, Outlook, and other tools should be installed in a precise order, otherwise they may not actually be patching networks to properly deal with the upcoming Daylight Savings Time shift, now one week earlier.
215420
InfoWorld - The new DST (daylight-saving time) is drawing near. Do you think you're ready? Run down this checklist to be sure.
511270
(InfoWorld) - A GoDaddy.com customer is seriously concerned that this domain registrar and hosting company may not be ready for the switch to DST (Daylight Saving Time) on Sunday. In a series of e-mail exchanges and phone calls, George Baltzell was told by GoDaddy.com's tech support team that the company is exempt from patching its servers because it is based in Arizona, which doesn't observe DST. "That's a silly response," Baltzell said. Baltzell, who lives in St. Louis, contacted GoDaddy.com's tech support after he crafted a short script using the PHP language to verify that the company's servers had been tuned for the DST switch, which comes earlier this year. His test showed that the GoDaddy.com servers are still acting according to the old DST rules, he said. "Thank you for contacting Online Support. As Daylight Savings [sic] does not apply to our servers, since we are on Arizona Time and our time zone does not change, our servers wouldn't update," reads one of the replies he received, and which he provided to IDG News Service. He wrote back to GoDaddy, saying that despite being in Arizona, their servers needed to be patched, otherwise timestamps would be wrong when communicating with computers in other areas. He even provided them with the code he used for his test, but didn't hear back. When informed of this situation by IDG News Service, GoDaddy sent a statement from Chief Information Security Officer Neil Warner. It said GoDaddy has conducted risk analysis on all its systems in preparation for the DST switch as well as contacted its vendors and received recommended patches. "Further, over the weekend, Go Daddy developers and quality assurance teams will be monitoring the transition process closely. As for our corporate headquarters being located in Scottsdale, Arizona, while the fact that we do not participate in DST minimizes potential impact, we are taking all precautionary steps to ensure our customers, located all over the world, are not impacted," the statement read. Told of GoDaddy's response, Baltzell was puzzled about the different message he got from the technical support team. At press time, his test continues to indicate the GoDaddy.com servers haven't been patched, he said. The main site he hosts with GoDaddy.com is St. Louis Places to See. He is particularly concerned for a page in which he tracks power outages in the St. Louis metro area because timestamps are an important part of it. Whatever ends up happening, Baltzell's opinion of GoDaddy.com has been soured by the experience. "Their tech support response is such a non sequitur, it has me wondering whether I should switch to another company," he said. In 2005, President Bush signed into law the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Among other things, it orders that, beginning in 2007, the start of DST be moved from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March. It also shifts the return of standard time from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November. On Sunday, people in zones impacted by DST must advance their clocks one hour. They must set clocks back one hour when DST ends this year on Nov. 4. The new DST dates have had a significant impact on the IT industry as vendors have had to issue patches for their systems and users, both consumers and enterprise IT professionals, have had to adjust their computers.
72516
In one of only a handful of times since 2003, Microsoft won't have security patches available next week.
39617
By Courtney Sherwood, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.  Mar. 7--If you haven't downloaded the latest upgrades for your computer by this weekend, watch out when Monday rolls around.
357636
The delayed arrival of Windows Update Services is giving VARs and patch management vendors a chance to cash in.
588330
Microsoft Corp. this week sharply cut the prices it charges for DST patches for older software still getting limited support, saying the move is "the right thing" to do.
301070
Some customers are concerned that domain registrar and hosting firm can't handle early move to Daylight Saving Time.
55377
Â· Systems failure on busiest day of the tax yearÂ· Self-assessment deadline extended by one day
61667
Companies are scrambling to reset computing devices as daylight saving time begins three weeks earlier.
225263
Microsoft is taking the guesswork out of Patch Tuesday by detailing the type and severity of patches in its new Advance Notification bulletins. The first of these is being used for July's Patch Tuesday.
271966
DÃ©jÃ  vu Sun has warned of a bug in its Java software platforms stemming from problems involving an update module designed to address the earlier start of Daylight Saving Time in the US this year.â¦
278695
Daylight Saving Time will arrive this year earlier than it has in the past -- at 2 a.m. on March 11. Companies are scrambling to make sure their IT operations will be ready.
446014
(Source: Symantec) This paper describes the specific challenges of maintaining availability for Microsoft Exchange, both Exchange 2000 and 2003 environments, and then describes how Veritas Storage Foundation HA for Windows addresses these risks.
502207
Does this mean 40 lean days ahead? Microsoft pushed patches for 12 vulnerabilities out of the door yesterday, six of them classed as critical and six of them important.â¦
341825
And should 'solutions' be banned? Letters Who would have thought that time would tick you off so much? Daylight saving - do we like it? No we don't!â¦
50456
Although Microsoft had planned to release a patch today for a OneCare flaw that eats Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail files, user complaints prompted it to actually put out the fix on Sunday.