20 ms·

For those wondering: Currently PDT is 7 hours behind UTC. AWS can do so many things, reporting critical outage updates in UTC is not one of those things.

messe 3y ago
> AWS can do so many things, reporting critical outage updates in UTC is not one of those things. Thank you for reminding me about one of my biggest mildest annoyances from working at AWS.
takeda 3y ago
I thought it uses your browser time zone, is it not?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- meepmorp 3y ago
  Says the same here and I'm on the other coast.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  No. It's all PDT.
rurp 3y ago
The inconsistency with timezones across different services in the AWS console has always baffled and annoyed me. Some places have a time without a timezone and I can never tell right away if it's utc, local time, or region time.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- xp84 3y ago
  > The inconsistency [of everything, everywhere] in the AWS console ftfy AWS is powerful and very popular, but for the console, "it functions" must be the only condition the UI has to satisfy. Should every page use a unique table and sorting widget and UI language? Yes, please! I'm assuming this helps them move fast, not having to coordinate with anybody or wait for a UI designer to tell them how it should look. But it's striking when compared to GCP.
  - jamesfinlayson 3y ago
    I've been told that each service is responsible for their own UI.
kroltan 3y ago
Semi-related: if you ever feel the need to report times to a global audience, not only make sure to always report the timezone (even if it is the same as the user's), but also use UTC offsets rather than timezone names. Life is too short to remember what each timezone name means and converting to it, UTC offsets are much easier on the mental calculator.
- colanderman 3y ago
  And even if the time is UTC, please indicate this.
- dylan604 3y ago
  just report it in epoch seconds
  - conductr 3y ago
    that's based on UTC, so just use UTC?
    - dylan604 3y ago
      based on is not the same thing though is it? UTC is human readable even if it is not calculated correctly. yes, i'm saying that if you can read epoch seconds, you're not human. 1970-01-01 00:00:00 is always a give away that something is a foot
      - conductr 3y ago
        "anchored on" then? I might be wrong but we're both talking about showing time as distance from the same starting point are we not? One's just more human readable so that's why I say why not just use that? Seconds since can be miscalculated too, especially if current time isn't known/reliable
    - account42 3y ago
      I wish it was based on TAI though.
cogogo 3y ago
The outage is in Virginia so PDT isn't even local time. On their status page they are asking users to access the console via a region specific endpoint like https://us-west-2.console.aws.amazon.com https://us-west-2.console.aws.amazon.com. Wonder if the PDT timestamp is because they have to serve the status page from US West right now.
mulmen 3y ago
Technically PDT is always 7 hours behind UTC. PST is always 8 hours behind. We just change which one we use twice a year. Pacific time makes sense when you realize Fremont is the center of the universe.
- sph 3y ago
  True in theory, in practice people often get it wrong and use the incorrect one.
  - rlpb 3y ago
    Indeed. There are Americans who will tell me PST, when they meant PDT but forgot to mention that. Now I have to track the American DST calendar as well as European DST calendar to do the conversion. There are also people who tell me GMT (because they think that term means "the time in London") when they meant BST (because in summer, London doesn't operate on GMT).
    - tedmiston 3y ago
      Most Americans, at least non-engineers, will incorrectly say PST, EST, etc year-round when they actually mean PT, ET, etc. I have found this site very helpful for linking people to when they are confused or using them incorrectly: https://time.is/PT https://time.is/PT https://time.is/PST https://time.is/PST https://time.is/PDT https://time.is/PDT The time zone comparison feature is nice as well: https://time.is/compare/0800AM_14_June_2023_in_Cincinnati/London https://time.is/compare/0800AM_14_June_2023_in_Cincinnati/Lo...
- bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
  Yup, this is why I always say “US ET” (I'm on the east coast). I don't trust myself or anyone else to get it right, and if the other party is converting anyway, their conversion tool (google?) should be able to handle that. (Of course, the date is necessary but implicit, but that's usually fine too.)
andrelaszlo 3y ago
After spending some time in the Canary Islands I realized how nice it was to be in UTC all the time and now I have my laptop clock set to UTC. Still contemplating whether I should set Google Calendar and my smartwatch to UTC as well. 8-)
stephenc123 3y ago
I've set the option on the below page to UTC https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status#settings https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status#settings As I'm logged in, it persists across browser sessions.
- j16sdiz 3y ago
  It's worse. Imagine you have two browser opening the same page, one showing UTC, another showing your local time. There are no indicator showing which time zone is used. You have to mentally correlate "this browser windows has logged in..." with the time shown on screen.
joshuanapoli 3y ago
The fact that which timezone is used in the announcement is a sign of progress... AWS announced it pretty quickly, gave nice updates, and seems to have fixed the problem quickly enough. I'm interested to see the postmortem...
utbabya 3y ago
When I was with AWS I advocate for ISO8601 "Z" whenever I could or need to influence, say internal systems. If all systems talk this we'd save tens of thousands of man hours. Just do the conversion for us mortals, or other necessities. Tech side of incidents is definitely "system", I'd argue more often than not consumers of AWS are also tech side with systems in UTCs so health dashboards should also be a UTC first system. Doubt this could get prioritized tho
doubleasea 3y ago
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2022/09/aws-health-dashboard-displays-localized-dates-times-service-health-events/ https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2022/09/aws-healt... If you login, you can specify what timezone for timestamps and for the text to be parsed into your timezone preference.

messe 3y ago

> AWS can do so many things, reporting critical outage updates in UTC is not one of those things. Thank you for reminding me about one of my biggest mildest annoyances from working at AWS.

takeda 3y ago

I thought it uses your browser time zone, is it not?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
meepmorp 3y ago
Says the same here and I'm on the other coast.
paulddraper 3y ago
No. It's all PDT.

rurp 3y ago

The inconsistency with timezones across different services in the AWS console has always baffled and annoyed me. Some places have a time without a timezone and I can never tell right away if it's utc, local time, or region time.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xp84 3y ago
> The inconsistency [of everything, everywhere] in the AWS console ftfy AWS is powerful and very popular, but for the console, "it functions" must be the only condition the UI has to satisfy. Should every page use a unique table and sorting widget and UI language? Yes, please! I'm assuming this helps them move fast, not having to coordinate with anybody or wait for a UI designer to tell them how it should look. But it's striking when compared to GCP.
- jamesfinlayson 3y ago
  I've been told that each service is responsible for their own UI.

kroltan 3y ago

Semi-related: if you ever feel the need to report times to a global audience, not only make sure to always report the timezone (even if it is the same as the user's), but also use UTC offsets rather than timezone names. Life is too short to remember what each timezone name means and converting to it, UTC offsets are much easier on the mental calculator.

colanderman 3y ago
And even if the time is UTC, please indicate this.
dylan604 3y ago
just report it in epoch seconds
- conductr 3y ago
  that's based on UTC, so just use UTC?
  - dylan604 3y ago
    based on is not the same thing though is it? UTC is human readable even if it is not calculated correctly. yes, i'm saying that if you can read epoch seconds, you're not human. 1970-01-01 00:00:00 is always a give away that something is a foot
    - conductr 3y ago
      "anchored on" then? I might be wrong but we're both talking about showing time as distance from the same starting point are we not? One's just more human readable so that's why I say why not just use that? Seconds since can be miscalculated too, especially if current time isn't known/reliable
  - account42 3y ago
    I wish it was based on TAI though.

cogogo 3y ago

The outage is in Virginia so PDT isn't even local time. On their status page they are asking users to access the console via a region specific endpoint like https://us-west-2.console.aws.amazon.com https://us-west-2.console.aws.amazon.com. Wonder if the PDT timestamp is because they have to serve the status page from US West right now.

mulmen 3y ago

Technically PDT is always 7 hours behind UTC. PST is always 8 hours behind. We just change which one we use twice a year. Pacific time makes sense when you realize Fremont is the center of the universe.

sph 3y ago
True in theory, in practice people often get it wrong and use the incorrect one.
- rlpb 3y ago
  Indeed. There are Americans who will tell me PST, when they meant PDT but forgot to mention that. Now I have to track the American DST calendar as well as European DST calendar to do the conversion. There are also people who tell me GMT (because they think that term means "the time in London") when they meant BST (because in summer, London doesn't operate on GMT).
  - tedmiston 3y ago
    Most Americans, at least non-engineers, will incorrectly say PST, EST, etc year-round when they actually mean PT, ET, etc. I have found this site very helpful for linking people to when they are confused or using them incorrectly: https://time.is/PT https://time.is/PT https://time.is/PST https://time.is/PST https://time.is/PDT https://time.is/PDT The time zone comparison feature is nice as well: https://time.is/compare/0800AM_14_June_2023_in_Cincinnati/London https://time.is/compare/0800AM_14_June_2023_in_Cincinnati/Lo...
bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
Yup, this is why I always say “US ET” (I'm on the east coast). I don't trust myself or anyone else to get it right, and if the other party is converting anyway, their conversion tool (google?) should be able to handle that. (Of course, the date is necessary but implicit, but that's usually fine too.)

andrelaszlo 3y ago

After spending some time in the Canary Islands I realized how nice it was to be in UTC all the time and now I have my laptop clock set to UTC. Still contemplating whether I should set Google Calendar and my smartwatch to UTC as well. 8-)

stephenc123 3y ago

I've set the option on the below page to UTC https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status#settings https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status#settings As I'm logged in, it persists across browser sessions.

j16sdiz 3y ago
It's worse. Imagine you have two browser opening the same page, one showing UTC, another showing your local time. There are no indicator showing which time zone is used. You have to mentally correlate "this browser windows has logged in..." with the time shown on screen.

joshuanapoli 3y ago

The fact that which timezone is used in the announcement is a sign of progress... AWS announced it pretty quickly, gave nice updates, and seems to have fixed the problem quickly enough. I'm interested to see the postmortem...

utbabya 3y ago

When I was with AWS I advocate for ISO8601 "Z" whenever I could or need to influence, say internal systems. If all systems talk this we'd save tens of thousands of man hours. Just do the conversion for us mortals, or other necessities. Tech side of incidents is definitely "system", I'd argue more often than not consumers of AWS are also tech side with systems in UTCs so health dashboards should also be a UTC first system. Doubt this could get prioritized tho

doubleasea 3y ago

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2022/09/aws-health-dashboard-displays-localized-dates-times-service-health-events/ https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2022/09/aws-healt... If you login, you can specify what timezone for timestamps and for the text to be parsed into your timezone preference.