Time Zone handling in DX UIM for alarms and metrics

Products

• DX Unified Infrastructure Management (Nimsoft / UIM)

Issue/Introduction

How are time zones handled in DX UIM when it comes to viewing alarms and metrics?

Is it possible to define a default time zone, for example to have all users view the alarms and metrics in the same time zone regardless of the user's location?

Environment

DX UIM 20.3 and higher

Resolution

Timezones are not directly configurable in DX UIM, but depend on the time zone setting at the operating system level.

The documentation states that the UIM Primary Hub, Operator Console, and Database server must all be located in the same time zone.

This is required because the time zone of the primar components will be used to calculate an "offset" which determines how the time will be displayed for each end user.

It is not possible to configure the time zone at the user or server level - it is always taken from the operating system.  This is also true of the robots - they will submit alarms in their own local timezone, and the timestamps will automatically be recorded based on the timezone offset so that a user can always see the "real time" that an alarm occurred in their own local time zone.

This means that if a user is in the Mountain Time Zone, and views an alarm that was generated at 4pm U.S. Mountain Time (GMT -7), another user who is in GMT time zone will see the same alarm as having occurred at 11pm, because 11pm GMT is actualy 4pm US Mountain Time and this is when the alarm actually occurred.

For example, the below screenshot shows an alarm which was triggered at 4:17pm GMT - and this alarm is viewed on a server which is also in GMT.  The screenshot was taken at 4:38pm GMT local time:

The same alarm, viewed by the same user in GMT looking at Operator Console also sees this alarm with 16:17 GMT local time:

If this user logs into a Windows system where the Time Zone on the Operating System is set to Mountain Time, the same alarm (note the alarm ID) shows with 10:17am as the time:

The same is true for Metrics (QOS) data.

For example, the user in GMT Time Zone can view a metric view for a host that contains the most current data - and we see the chart goes up to 16:51 local (GMT) time:

 

Whereas when viewed from the system that is in U.S. Mountain Time, the same data for the same host shows the local time - 10:51am:

 

This cannot be changed directly, other than changing the time zone in the Operating System itself.

It is not recommended to set machines with a DX UIM Robot on them to the incorrect time zone, as this will cause data offsets to be miscalculated.  If you need to view the data in a specific time zone, you can set the time zone on the operating system to the desired time zone, but make sure to use a machine that does not have any DX UIM robot installed on it in order to avoid impacting the submitted alarms and data.