Set TimeZone on Windows Azure Virtual Machines

Question

We are planning to host our web application Windows Azure Virtual Machines(IaaS). The application was developed to work in Central European time zone(CET). Will there be any problem if we change the time zone on Azure VMs from UTC to CET?

For example if there is any auto-disaster-recovery / restart / any other maintenance operation on any virtual machine, will we have to explicitly log-in and set the time-zone as per our preference or will time-zone setting be preserved ?

Changing time-zone is not recommended for Web Roles and Worker roles(Platform as a Service) as per this article "Manage TimeZone for Applications on Windows Azure" as it can introduce instability. Can there be a similar issue (e.g. issues with load-balancing multiple Azure VMs in the same availability set)?

Eventually we will upgrade application to use TimeZone API but would like to change time-zone on virtual machines to quickly move our application to Azure.

Answer 1

AFAIK Virtual Machines (IAAS) are in your complete control. There are no Azure agents installed on those machines and Azure has no knowledge or care as to what is done inside them. Any Azure-related updates/upgrades/reboots happen from the "outside" on Azure's schedule. Thus, you can change the time zone or other settings.