timezones

Hi, We are installing a fairly large system where one Informix server is going to support multiple clients covering several timezones. The problem is how to get the system to correctly time-stamp transactions that reflect the time zone where the source client resides. So far the only suggestions is to rewrite all of our code to generate date/time at the client side and attach it to the transaction before introduction to the server and not rely on the server for any time-stamping. There must be an easier way to address this problem. Certainly, one approach is to establish several Informix servers on one system and dedicate each server to the cluster of clients in a particular timezone and setting the TZ in that user space. This is not useful because the data must be shared by all clients. Any suggestions??? Thanks, Rich Saxon rcsaxon@aol.com

Hi I have a concept to solve this problem but not the implementation. That is to leave the servers at the time zone where they reside and add a timezone offset column for your clients. any data that is sent to the client is calculated using the offset. or have two time columns one with host time and one with offset calculated times for your clients. I hope this helps good luck and let me know. I work with a database that has the same problem but I am not a db programmer. kirt RCSAXON <rcsaxon@aol.com> wrote in message news:19990521151305.15325.00003328@ng05.aol.com... > Hi, > > We are installing a fairly large system where one Informix server is going to > support multiple clients covering several timezones. The problem is how to get > the system to correctly time-stamp transactions that reflect the time zone > where the source client resides. So far the only suggestions is to rewrite all > of our code to generate date/time at the client side and attach it to the > transaction before introduction to the server and not rely on the server for > any time-stamping. There must be an easier way to address this problem. > Certainly, one approach is to establish several Informix servers on one system > and dedicate each server to the cluster of clients in a particular timezone and > setting the TZ in that user space. This is not useful because the data must be > shared by all clients. > > Any suggestions??? > > Thanks, > Rich Saxon > rcsaxon@aol.com

Kirt has the right idea here. If you have a table in your database that describes the clients (for security purposes, or something), than simply add a column to this table that describes which timezone that client is in, and do offset calculations off of that column of that table. If no "client" table exists on the server, you could create one that simply has a client-id, and their timezone. No timezone fiddling should be necessary at the Unix level on your server. HTH Kind regards, John Bejarano. In article <7i7q6g$gag$1@denws02.mw.mediaone.net>, "kirt" <kirtt@mediaone.net> wrote: > Hi > I have a concept to solve this problem but not the implementation. That is > to leave the servers at the time zone where they reside and add a timezone > offset column for your clients. any data that is sent to the client is > calculated using the offset. or have two time columns one with host time and > one with offset calculated times for your clients. I hope this helps good > luck and let me know. I work with a database that has the same problem but > I am not a db programmer. > kirt > > RCSAXON <rcsaxon@aol.com> wrote in message > news:19990521151305.15325.00003328@ng05.aol.com... > > Hi, > > > > We are installing a fairly large system where one Informix server is going > to > > support multiple clients covering several timezones. The problem is how > to get > > the system to correctly time-stamp transactions that reflect the time zone > > where the source client resides. So far the only suggestions is to > rewrite all > > of our code to generate date/time at the client side and attach it to the > > transaction before introduction to the server and not rely on the server > for > > any time-stamping. There must be an easier way to address this problem. > > Certainly, one approach is to establish several Informix servers on one > system > > and dedicate each server to the cluster of clients in a particular > timezone and > > setting the TZ in that user space. This is not useful because the data > must be > > shared by all clients. > > > > Any suggestions??? > > > > Thanks, > > Rich Saxon > > rcsaxon@aol.com > > -- <><><><><><><><> John Bejarano bebe stores, inc. <><><><><><><><> --== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==-- ---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---