Are You Ready for the Change in Daylight Savings?

By Sam Sliman
President, Optimal Solutions Integration, Inc.

Daylight savings goes into effect this Sunday, three weeks earlier than usual. The daylight-time shift, according to some technology executives and industry analysts, amounts to a “mini-Y2K.” The potential result is a disruption of business if clocks fall out of sync inside all sorts of hardware and software systems.

To be sure, this crisis is platform agnostic, equally impacting all applications and systems that contain time-based triggers. As its solutions perform vital functions for more than 38,000 organizations worldwide, SAP sites are certainly not exempt.

First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge that this change in daylight savings is a significant event. If it is not dealt with promptly and properly, the consequences can potentially be severe. SAP customers must be prepared to commit the resources necessary to perform thorough analysis, identify potential problems, and implement the appropriate fixes and/or workarounds.

As there are many time-sensitive triggers within complex SAP landscapes, mitigating the risk of the DST shift clearly goes beyond what might be considered a quick fix. The more complex an environment, the more interfaces, the more batch jobs, etc., the more potential points of failure.

The most difficult problems to identify in advance are those that result in the interaction of disparate systems, where time synchronization is assumed and may not be accounted for in error processing logic. Complex and multi-faceted interfaces are especially problematic.

And it’s more than just business functionality at risk. Many companies allocate CPU cycles based on peak-processing windows. User response times will suffer if DST is not changed accordingly. The resulting customer dissatisfaction can easily translate into significant business impact.

If temporary workarounds are put into place, they will need to be undone in three weeks, resulting in even more time, expense and distraction. In short, it behooves SAP customers to give the shift in DST the attention it deserves, and to commit the resources to deal with it efficiently and expeditiously.

As always, it is heavily recommended that every SAP organization conduct a DST-related business continuity planning exercise. If there is time for a dress rehearsal, great, but regardless of the amount of preparation, everyone needs a fall-back plan that outlines a process for dealing with the unexpected. Because as IT organizations know only too well, Murphy’s Law reigns supreme.