Many students are dreading losing an hour of sleep Sunday because of an earlier-than-usual daylight-saving time. But information technologists on campus have more to worry about after spending weeks trying to safeguard computer systems from possible glitches.
In August 2005, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to change daylight-saving time to begin the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November beginning in 2007 in an effort to cut energy costs.
While President George W. Bush and Congress are optimistic about the efforts, big software vendors like Microsoft have spent months scrambling to make sure their programs do not pose functional risks similar to the Y2K technology scare. Problems from computer glitches could cause time-automated systems to be delayed and even cause hotels to overbook rooms.
Sheri Thompson, University Information Technology Communications and Planning officer, said administrators who use Microsoft Outlook, Exchange and Lotus Notes may be affected the most if the department’s efforts to fix the internal systems are not effective.
“We are noticing that it might affect meeting times for University people who have online calendars and use Blackberries,” Thompson said. “One of the people using Exchange noticed that his meetings for next week were listed off by an hour. [The times] said 11:30 a.m. instead of 10:30 a.m. We don’t think that it is going to be that big of a deal, but [ITS] wants them to be aware.”
According to the University GROK Knowledge Base Web site, Microsoft Automatic Updates will update the clocks on campus computers but will not change the current calendar entries created between March 11 and April 1. Microsoft has downloadable patches to fix these problems. ITS has actively worked to obtain and install the patches on campus, Thompson said.
“The vendors, like Microsoft and IBM has been looking at this problem since 2005 when Congress passed the energy bill,” Thompson said. “It is up to the vendors to make their products work in times like these. The worst case scenario is that Monday [Microsoft] will come with more patches that we will have to scramble and push to make use of them.”
Blake Hebert, executive director of Facility and Utility Operations, said springing forward earlier this year does cause some concern for the facility’s automated system that is usually reprogrammed every year for daylight-saving time.
“We have a building automation system that turns on our air conditioner and works a lot of certain components and mechanical systems that are associated with the cooling of buildings on-campus,” Hebert said. “In more normal years, it was just programming that we had to worry about. But this year [the daylight-saving schedule] affected the software provisions.”
Hebert said Johnson Control, the software contractor for Facility Services’ software, has worked to adjust the software for Sunday, while his department is working to adjust the timing functions for the buildings.
“We have timers that turn some things on and off,” Hebert said. “We are going through the list, but we have so many buildings. Our goal is to catch everything. But naturally if the students and faculty see anything wrong, they can call us. We will fix it.”
Tracy Jones, assistant general manager for Lod Cook Hotel, said he does not think the hotel will encounter any problems with the reservation schedules.
“We have an IT person that has done an upgrade on the system,” Jones said. “So we are hoping that everything works. We will know if it works on Sunday morning. The IT person came in and finalized everything [Thursday]. It actually did not take him that long to do all of this.”
—–Contact Garesia Randle atgrandle@lsureveille.com