Impact of version 4 timezone files on E-Business Suite

You all must be aware of version 4 of timezone files. Timezone files introduce new timezones in an Oracle Database and its clients. Recently Rick wanted to know how should we go about ensuring that we have version 4 of timezone files in all the places possible in an E-Business Suite configuration. For an 11i instance that would mean:

1. 9.2.0.x or 10.2.0.x Database ORACLE_HOME
2. 8.1.7 IAS_ORACLE_HOME
3. 8.0.6 Tools ORACLE_HOME
4. Any remote ORACLE_HOME which has a database link or other interface with E-Biz
5. Database clients connecting directly to E-biz database

In Metalink Note 413671.1, Oracle specifically mentions that " For 8.0 and 8.1 (8i) these fixes are not needed. So we can remove 2 and 3 from the above list. That leaves us with

1. 9.2.0.x or 10.2.0.x Database ORACLE_HOME
2. Any remote 9i or 10g ORACLE_HOME which has a database link or other interface with E-Biz
3. Database clients connecting directly to E-biz database.

In metalink notes 417277.1, 400010.1 and 409210.1, it is mentioned that: "future CPUs will contain V3 and V4 timezone files". Incidentally, CPUJan2007, includes US (V3) time zone changes.

That leaves us to ensure that all the bolt-ons which connect to ERP should have the v4 timezone files and if you allow connections from tools like Toad, sqlplus, sqlpal, Oracle SQL Developer, you have to ensure that those clients also install the v4 timezone files. That's a big deal.