Time zone problem

23 Sep 2005 3:39 AM

JC Voon

Hi:

Our client in Australia will be using a centralized database server
and Citrix for all the branches. Melbourne & Sydney are GMT+10:00
where Adelaide is GMT+9:30.

How can i configure the SQL server so that the client in different
time zone are able to see the datetime value retrieve from the
database as their local time ?

I do couple of search on the news group, and some one suggess to store
the datetime value in GMT and calculate the client local time from the
GMT, is there a better way to overcome this problem ?

What if my database already stored datetime value in server localtime
and the client application is not program in multiple time zone in
mind ? Do i need to rewrite the client application to handle different
time zone ?

Pleas help.
Thanks
JCVoon

23 Sep 2005 6:19 AM

Jonathan Chong

Yes. Storing GMT datetime in SQL is the best solution.
Use dateadd function to convert localtime that has been stored in SQL to
GMT. And use dateadd function to calculate client local time too.

Hope it helps.

Show quote

"JC Voon" <jcvoon***@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4333761d.9947463@msnews.microsoft.com...
> Hi:
>
> Our client in Australia will be using a centralized database server
> and Citrix for all the branches. Melbourne & Sydney are GMT+10:00
> where Adelaide is GMT+9:30.
>
> How can i configure the SQL server so that the client in different
> time zone are able to see the datetime value retrieve from the
> database as their local time ?
>
> I do couple of search on the news group, and some one suggess to store
> the datetime value in GMT and calculate the client local time from the
> GMT, is there a better way to overcome this problem ?
>
> What if my database already stored datetime value in server localtime
> and the client application is not program in multiple time zone in
> mind ? Do i need to rewrite the client application to handle different
> time zone ?
>
>
> Pleas help.
> Thanks
> JCVoon
>

23 Sep 2005 6:33 AM

Rajesh Padmanabhan

When you have application shared across multiple time zone application . It
is a common practice to standardize at any one time zone - GMT or which ever
time zone you want to be standardize with . Have the client locale identified
and offset it accordingly for data retrieval.

We had a similar situation in US where 2 of the location was in Eastern
Standard Time and one in PST. We standardized the time to PST and had an
offset of +3 hours for EST(EST and PST are 3 hours time difference).

Show quote

"JC Voon" wrote:

> Hi:
>
> Our client in Australia will be using a centralized database server
> and Citrix for all the branches. Melbourne & Sydney are GMT+10:00
> where Adelaide is GMT+9:30.
>
> How can i configure the SQL server so that the client in different
> time zone are able to see the datetime value retrieve from the
> database as their local time ?
>
> I do couple of search on the news group, and some one suggess to store
> the datetime value in GMT and calculate the client local time from the
> GMT, is there a better way to overcome this problem ?
>
> What if my database already stored datetime value in server localtime
> and the client application is not program in multiple time zone in
> mind ? Do i need to rewrite the client application to handle different
> time zone ?
>
>
> Pleas help.
> Thanks
> JCVoon
>

23 Sep 2005 7:46 AM

jcvoon

Hi Jonathan Chong, Rajesh Padmanabhan

Thanks for the quick reply, look like this is the only way to solve the
problem.

Anyone else has a quick solution before i start modify the client
application to convert the date to client's local datetime ?

Thanks
JCVoon