NTP Server Time Tired of Inaccurate and Insecure Time
The internet has been a marvellous resource for business over the last decade. High speed access and the proliferation of computers in homes and offices alike have turned the World Wide Web into the main business arena for many companies.
With more and more transactions being conducted from opposite ends of the world across the internet, the need for an accurate and precise clock to keep computer networks synchronised has never been greater.
Most of the world’s computer networks, synchronise to a source of UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) which is the worldwide standard and is controlled by atomic clocks. A worldwide standard for synchronising the clocks has been developed also. NTP (Network Time Protocol) is a software algorithm that distributes UTC amongst a network’s clocks and adjusts the time accordingly.
Many computer network administrators turn to the internet as a source of NTP server time as there are a multitude of sources of UTC time. However, many internet sources of NTP time cannot be relied upon to provide accurate time. Surveys have discovered more than half of all internet time servers were inaccurate by over a second and even those that are not, they could be too far away to provide any useful precision.
More importantly, however, is that internet based NTP servers are external to a network’s firewall so any regular communication with a NTP server will require the firewall port to be left open allowing easy access for malicious users to take advantage of.
The only solution for getting a source of NTP server time, whilst keeping a network secure, is to use an external stratum 1 NTP time server. These devices communicate directly with an atomic clock either via the GPS satellite network or long wave radio signals. Because these devices operate from with the firewall the entire network is kept secure whilst the NTP server distributes an accurate, precise and source of UTC time.
