Question on adjusting time zone from ${LastSystemUpTimePollUtc}

Question

I have a Node down alert that I want certain information in the email. One of the details I would like it when it stopped polling, which I believe is the LastSystemUpTimePollUtc. The problem is that I get UTC time in the email. I don't want that, I want the current timezone of the server, since we are not geographically separated.

Can I do that for the email message, and how would I if possible? I figure it might be something that can be done with the Define SQL Variable, but not certain how to do that.

Thanks.

adatole · Accepted Answer

The answer here is "yes" and "no".

If you only have one poller and that poller is set to the same timezone as the database (which it SHOULD, near to the point of my saying it MUST) then you can get the correct time by putting a ${SQL ...} field in your alert rather than just the ${LastSystemUptimePollUtc} field. More on that in a bit.

IF you have more than one polling engine, and some of those pollers are NOT in the same time zone as the database, then you are out of luck as far as I know

HOWEVER, you really want to avoid that situation (I talk about it here: Time zones, DST and gaps in monitoring), and put everything into a single timezone regardless of physical location.

That said, the code to use to get time-zone correct time is:

${SQL SELECT CONVERT(datetime, SWITCHOFFSET(CONVERT(datetimeoffset, nodes.LastSystemUpTimePollUtc), DATENAME(TzOffset, SYSDATETIMEOFFSET())))}