Notification Create time in PCO 2.1

[Former Member]

Hello,

I am using PCo 2.1.6.0 and I have observed a difference of 4 hrs between the Notification Create time and the time zone where actually PCo is installed.

In my current scenario both PCo & the data source (OSI PI) are installed on the same server which follows the EDT/EST time zone.

The notification message create date that is sent to MII (which also resides in the EST/EDT TZ) show a + 4 hrs (I think it shows GMT). I observe the same time when I do a "Test Notification Delivery" --> "View Sample" for a notification.

On the PCo Mgmt Console if I navigate to Tools --> Options and further expand Global Properties and click Date/Time format the correct time is displayed.

Additionally if I run a TAG query against the same Agent the correct time is returned.

Why is there a difference for the notification then, when everything is in the same TZ? Am I missing some config setting in PCo?

I have not come across any SAP note on this issue and could not find any older posts referring to this behavior.

Thanks for the help.

Udayan

Edited by: Udayan Upreti on Sep 19, 2011 9:30 AM

[former_member4529]

Hi Udayan,

PCo always sends the timestamp of notification in GMT. You can adjust that according to the MII server's timezone either in the BLS which receives the notification (better option) or in the PCo agent's output message configuration.

Thanks,

Dipankar

[Former Member]

Thanks Dipankar.

I never expected that PCo would be designed in such a way.

If that is the case then how would one take care of the Daylight Savings then?

Appreciate your help.

Regards,

Udayan

[salvatore_castro]

I'll have to verify this with development but I thought it was always using UTC time and not GMT for exactly this reason.

Sam

[salvatore_castro]

That was a much faster reply from them than I expected...anyway, PCo does in fact use UTC.

Sam

[salvatore_castro]

Ud,

Ok, so to fully answer your original question as to why there is a difference in the timestamps of a PCo notification and a MII Query to a PCo agent.

The notifications always use UTC which is universal time regardless of timezones or system settings and was agreed upon as the best approach to keep track of when messages were actually created. If you want current timestamp of the server in the message payload you can add an Expression with the value of "datenow()" and I believe that this will give you the current timestamp of the PCo server.

When you query a PCo agent from MII, the MII Time Engine will take care of the timezone conversion for you in order to ensure that date from the proper time ranges the user is asking for is returned to them. Since the MII and PCo servers can be located in diffferent regions/timezones we have to handle this in our time engine.

Does this make sense?

Regards,

Sam

[Former Member]

Sam,

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation.

I will test this out and let the forum know the results.

Thanks again.

Regards,

Udayan