Network Time Server Keeping Control of Time
Computer networking can seem an intimidating undertaking. However, a computer network is really just a number of machines connected together for ease of data transfer and security. They can be very small such as two computers in a home network to really large networks consisting of hundreds and thousands of machines.
When a computer or device is connected to a network then there is only one point of reference that the computers can use to establish the order of events and applications and that is time.
Time, in the form of time stamps are used by most applications and this is when problems in computer networks can occur.
Computers tell the time by using a software clock. This is based on a system clock that keeps time when the computer is off. However, computers internal clocks are wholly inaccurate. They tend to drift up to several seconds a week. On a network when there is more than one machine, this can cause severe problems if the machines are drifting at different rates.
Emails may arrive before they have been sent and the whole network can be vulnerable to security threats and even fraud!
A network time server is used to synchronize a computer network to a single time source. This time source can be anything from an internal clock on a computer to the time told by a wrist watch. However, to ensure perfect accuracy and to keep a network synchronized to the rest of the world then a UTC time source should be used.
UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is a global timescale based on the time told by atomic clocks. A network time server can receive a UTC time source from across the Internet (although unsecured), via the GPS (global positioning system) network or via specialist radio transmission from national physics laboratories.
Most network time servers use NTP (Network Time Protocol) to distribute the timing reference throughout the network. NTP is not the only timing protocol designed to do this although it is, however, by far the most widely used.
