How does Reporter handle processing access logs from multiple time zones?

Products

• Reporter

Issue/Introduction

Reporter is designed to process access logs from any ProxySG located in any time zone from around the world.  To do this, the Blue Coat engineering team selected a central point of reference-(Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)-so that all data is injected into the database in the order in which they occur. As Reporter processes each access log, it treats each log line as it is in GMT time and injects it into the database as such. 

For example: What happens if you receive two events that occur at the same GMT time but the access logs were created in Eastern Daylight Tine (EDT) and Pacific Daylight Time PDT? These two events are recorded and calculated as GMT. In other words, a correctly configured SG will record it's log line events in GMT, so Reporter can correctly inject them into its database.

How reports are displayed:

The local time of the Reporter server is only used as a reference point to export PDF and CSV  reports, but not to display HTML reports to the client. When you login to Reporter as a client, the data always displays according to the local browser time. If the report is exported to PDF or CSV, through the scheduler  as a E-mailed Report,  or to saved to disk,  it is also displayed using the Reporter Time Zone information--not the from the client's perspective.

Where the same offset exists for multpile timezones- such as the Timezone: GMT +6:00 ASTANA  and  the Timezone: GMT +6:00 Dhaka- and there is no applicable Daylight Savings Time ( DST), Reporter will display the best possible Timezone, being guided by the Olson timezone database, which is what most operating systems use today.

NOTE1: If the ProxySG has the incorrect time and/or it's Time Zone configured badly, Reporter still calculates the time into GMT and records it, which means this data is always going to be displayed with the wrong time. .

NOTE2: Nearly all international time is kept using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is also known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

NOTE3: The word client is used in this article to refer to a separate Personal Computer running a supported browser and accessing the Reporter server.

NOTE4: For more information on the Olsen Timezone database, see Wiki Site.

Resolution

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