If the character set collation and time zone of your ApsaraDB RDS for SQL Server instance do not match business logic or your application needs to handle the data of multiple time zones, you can change the character set collation and time zone of the RDS instance. This ensures that the data is correctly converted and displayed in different time zones.
Background information
The default character set collation is Chinese_PRC_CI_AS.
The default time zone is China Standard Time.
ApsaraDB RDS provides the following system databases:
master,msdb,tempdb, andmodel.
You can view the available character set collations and time zones in the ApsaraDB RDS console.
To change the character set collation of a self-managed database, you can run the
ALTER DATABASE <The name of the self-managed database> COLLATE <The character set collation that you want to use>statement.
Change the character set collation of system databases
Before you change the character set collation of system databases, make sure that no user databases are created on your RDS instance. If a user database exists on the RDS instance, the option for the change of character set collation is not displayed in the ApsaraDB RDS console.
If you have just deleted databases from your RDS instance, the deletion task may be pending on the secondary RDS instance. Before you can change the character set collation and time zone, make sure that neither your RDS instance nor its secondary RDS instance contains user databases. This prevents conflicts.
- Go to the Instances page. In the top navigation bar, select the region in which the RDS instance resides. Then, find the RDS instance and click the ID of the instance.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Databases.
On the Databases page, click Modify Character Set Collation Rule.
In the dialog box that appears, configure the Character Set Collation Rule parameter and click OK.
ImportantWhen you change the character set collation of system databases on an RDS instance, the instance is restarted. During the restart, the RDS instance is unavailable for 2 to 10 minutes.
Go to the Basic Information page and view the new character set collation.
Change the time zone
You cannot change the time zones of RDS instances that belong to the shared instance family. For more information, see Overview of instance families.
- Go to the Instances page. In the top navigation bar, select the region in which the RDS instance resides. Then, find the RDS instance and click the ID of the instance.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Databases.
On the Databases page, click Change Time Zone.
In the dialog box that appears, configure the Time Zone parameter and click OK. For more information, see Time zones and UTC offsets.
ImportantWhen you change the time zone of an RDS instance, the RDS instance is restarted. If the RDS instance runs RDS High-availability Edition or RDS Cluster Edition, the RDS instance is stopped for up to 1 minute. If the RDS instance runs RDS Basic Edition, the RDS instance is stopped for up to 5 minutes. During the downtime, the RDS instance is unavailable.
In the dialogue box that appears, click OK.
Go to the Basic Information page and view the new time zone.
Time zones and UTC offsets
In some countries, when the daylight saving time (DST) begins and ends, you need to configure the clock forward or back by one hour to switch over to the DST or standard time. DST is a specific period of the year during which you can configure the clocks forward one hour based on the standard time for energy saving purposes. The start and end dates of the change vary by country and region.
Time zone | UTC offset | DST flag | Description |
Afghanistan Standard Time | (UTC+04:30) | None | Kabul |
Alaskan Standard Time | (UTC-09:00) | DST+1 hour | Alaska |
Arabian Standard Time | (UTC+04:00) | None | Abu Dhabi, Muscat |
Atlantic Standard Time | (UTC-04:00) | DST+1 hour | Atlantic Time (Canada) |
AUS Central Standard Time | (UTC+09:30) | None | Darwin |
AUS Eastern Standard Time | (UTC+10:00) | DST+1 hour | Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney |
Belarus Standard Time | (UTC+03:00) | None | Minsk |
Canada Central Standard Time | (UTC-06:00) | None | Saskatchewan |
Cape Verde Standard Time | (UTC-01:00) | None | Cabo Verde Is. |
Cen. Australia Standard Time | (UTC+09:30) | None | Adelaide |
Central America Standard Time | (UTC-06:00) | None | Central America |
Central Asia Standard Time | (UTC+06:00) | None | Astana |
Central Brazilian Standard Time | (UTC-04:00) | None | Cuiaba |
Central Europe Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) | None | Belgrade, Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana, Prague |
Central European Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) | DST+1 hour | Sarajevo, Skopje, Warsaw, Zagreb |
Central Pacific Standard Time | (UTC+11:00) | None | Solomon Islands, New Caledonia |
Central Standard Time | (UTC-06:00) | DST+1 hour | Central Time (US and Canada) |
Central Standard Time (Mexico) | (UTC-06:00) | None | Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey |
China Standard Time | (UTC+08:00) | None | Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Urumqi |
E. Africa Standard Time | (UTC+03:00) | None | Nairobi |
E. Australia Standard Time | (UTC+10:00) | DST+1 hour | Brisbane |
E. Europe Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) | DST+1 hour | Chisinau |
E. South America Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) | None | Brasilia |
Eastern Standard Time | (UTC-05:00) | DST+1 hour | Eastern Time (US and Canada) |
Georgian Standard Time | (UTC+04:00) | None | Tbilisi |
GMT Standard Time | (UTC) | None | Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London |
Greenland Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) | DST+1 hour | Greenland |
Greenwich Standard Time | (UTC) | None | Monrovia, Reykjavik |
GTB Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) | DST+1 hour | Athens, Bucharest |
Hawaiian Standard Time | (UTC-10:00) | None | Hawaii |
India Standard Time | (UTC+05:30) | None | Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi |
Jordan Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) | None | Amman |
Korea Standard Time | (UTC+09:00) | None | Seoul |
Middle East Standard Time | (UTC+02:00) | None | Beirut |
Mountain Standard Time | (UTC-07:00) | DST+1 hour | Mountain Time (US and Canada) |
Mountain Standard Time (Mexico) | (UTC-07:00) | None | Chihuahua, La Paz, Mazatlan |
US Mountain Standard Time | (UTC-07:00) | None | Arizona |
New Zealand Standard Time | (UTC+12:00) | DST+1 hour | Auckland, Wellington |
Newfoundland Standard Time | (UTC-03:30) | DST+1 hour | Newfoundland |
Pacific SA Standard Time | (UTC-03:00) | None | Santiago |
Pacific Standard Time | (UTC-08:00) | DST+1 hour | Pacific Time (US and Canada) |
Pacific Standard Time (Mexico) | (UTC-08:00) | None | Baja California |
Russian Standard Time | (UTC+03:00) | None | Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd |
SA Pacific Standard Time | (UTC-05:00) | None | Bogota, Lima, Quito, Rio Branco |
SE Asia Standard Time | (UTC+07:00) | None | Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta |
China Standard Time | (UTC+08:00) | None | Kuala Lumpur, Singapore |
Tokyo Standard Time | (UTC+09:00) | None | Osaka, Sapporo, Tokyo |
US Eastern Standard Time | (UTC-05:00) | DST+1 hour | Indiana (East) |
UTC | UTC | None | Coordinated Universal Time |
UTC-02 | (UTC-02:00) | None | Coordinated Universal Time-02 |
UTC-08 | (UTC-08:00) | None | Coordinated Universal Time-08 |
UTC-09 | (UTC-09:00) | None | Coordinated Universal Time-09 |
UTC-11 | (UTC-11:00) | None | Coordinated Universal Time-11 |
UTC+12 | (UTC+12:00) | None | Coordinated Universal Time+12 |
W. Australia Standard Time | (UTC+08:00) | None | Perth |
W. Central Africa Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) | None | West Central Africa |
W. Europe Standard Time | (UTC+01:00) | DST+1 hour | Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna |
References
You can call the following operations to query or change the character set collation and time zone of an instance: