Unmanaged Utility - Time Zone query

Uh, you're asking me about......windows tasks? Just use UTC as solarwinds does so that time changes are completely unimportant. Trying to accommodate timezones will literally make your life more difficult. UTC is absolutely what you should try to use. Just push the job back an hour to accommodate time changes that UTC wouldn't and problem solved. Or uncheck synchronize.

You are correct about the synchronize I would think uniswtc​, it will sync from "now" to "future state", effectively flip flopping on time changes. However, having a job be this important to you and running through windows task scheduling is a very, very bad idea. Windows scheduling is nice in few instances and fairly risky otherwise. I mean you'd have to watch it via other sources to even make sure if it works, and could be stating it's working when it's not or a variety of other factors.

First google result for windows tasks utc:

Triggers (MS KB)

designerfx I used Triggers only . If using the Task scheduler in Windows is very bad idea, then any idea which another best one to use?

Well, what are you trying to do? What is this schedule supposed to make happen?

designerfx Here is an example. Currently EMEA TZ, CET has 1 hour behind UTC (UTC - 1). If I setup the schedule as per the CET (e.g. schedule to run @ 11:25 AM CET, 10:25 AM UTC), after the Daylight savings during month end or april first week, the CET becomes 2 hours behind UTC (UTC - 2). Since we selected the check box synchronize across time zones, does the schedule runs at 11:25 AM CET (UTC - 1) or 12:25 AM CET (UTC - 2)?

Heh, thank you uniswtc - I get what you mean, but you're still talking windows scheduled tasks.  I mean outside of the task, what is this task actually doing? Not just a strict talk about the time. From a time standpoint synchronize theoretically should follow the time changes and a lack of would do exactly as you understand. However, I was asking again about what you're doing with scheduled tasks because relying on windows task scheduler (I'll be more explicit now) for anything at all is risky and prone to issues. Is it kicking off a backup?Copying a file? Rebooting? what?

Hi designerfx​, Sorry, I did not get the intense of your question . The task is to keep the devices in Unmanaged Mode by scheduling, since they have a monthly outage every 2nd Sunday, to do some system specific tasks on AS400 servers. They take outage and may reboot them as well.

Hope I have answered now

uniswtc​ you do know you can schedule unmanagement of any amount of nodes at the same time for a future date from the manage nodes page, without using the utility and based on your local time?  This might be an easier short term answer. You can even add a component to a summary page that displays scheduled unmanagement times and nodes that are down while unmanaged. The web component "nodes not up" lets you see nodes that are down but unmanaged and there is one that lets you see what is scheduled to be unmanaged as well.

I haven't worked with the unmanaged utility this much myself.  Maybe rschroeder​ knows someone who works with the unmanage utility a lot?

My team doesn't use the "Unmanage" options very often, but we also do not manage servers.  Just firewalls, switches, routers, and our Solarwinds pollers & databases, none of which are down long enough to warrant being temporarily unmanaged.

But I envision a day where Change Management will include steps for unmanaging alerting of devices when they're experiencing planned maintenance.  I can even see a day when Change Management tools grow big enough and sophisticated enough to take care of all the steps, from the actual maintenance to the temporary disabling of alerts, to testing, to roll-backs, to re-enabling of alerts.  And including all the alerting of customers outside the normal Solarwinds alerts.

Hi designerfx​, Even, we use the manual method of keeping the devices in unmanaged mode with the Unmanage option for the irregular intervals or when needed. The Unmanage utility would be used to keep the devices in Unmanaged mode for regular intervals i.e., every week/month same time (planned activities). We have been using it successfully, but earlier we had to make changes every 6 months due to Day light savings. But, when we have upgraded to NPM 11.5.2 & SAM 6.2.2, we could see the synchronize time zone option. We even enabled that option, but got some issues that some of the devices got node down alerts.

Hence, I just wanted to check, if anyone else is using it. Since, no one has responded, I mentioned you . Sorry to bother you. Now, I have plan to test it on a test server in the required time zones, before and after day light savings.

FYI, In the Unmanage Utility you can select the required nodes and setup duration only. When you save it, it creates a .cmd file which has to be used in Task Scheduler and there you can select your start time and frequency (weekly/monthly).

rschroeder - Thanks for the information.

no bother uniswtc​, happy to help where I can! I unfortunately just don't have too much to offer on this one, I dislike the unmanage scheduler thing. That's why I looped in rschroeder​ and also maybe zackm​ may have some good ideas who else to loop in to help?