Importance of Atomic Clock Time Sources for Technology

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Timekeeping and accuracy is important in the running of our day-to-day lives. We need to know what time events are occurring to ensure we don’t miss them, we also need to have a source of accurate time to prevent us from being late; and computers and other technology are just as reliant on the tine as we are.

For many computers and technical systems, the time in the form of a timestamp is the only tangible thing a machine has to identify when events should occur, and in what order. Without a timestamp a computer is unable to perform any task—even saving data is impossible without the machine knowing what time it is.

Because of this reliance on time, all computer systems have in-built clocks on their circuit boards. Commonly these are quartz based oscillators, similar to the electronic clocks used in digital wrist watches.

The problem with these system clocks is that they are not very accurate. Sure, for telling the time for human purposes they are precise enough; however, machines quite often require a higher level of accuracy, especially when devices are synchronised.

For computer networks, synchronisation is crucial as different machines telling different times could lead to errors and failure of the network to perform even simple tasks. The difficult with network synchronisation is that the system clocks used by computers to keep time can drift. And when different clocks drift by differing amounts, a network can soon fall into disarray as different machines keep different times.

For this reason, these system clocks are not relied on to provide synchronisation. Instead, a far more accurate type of clock is used: the atomic clock.

Atomic clocks don’t drift (at least not by more than a second in a million years) and so are ideal to synchronise computer networks too. Most computers use the software protocol NTP (Network Time Protocol) which uses a single atomic clock time source, either from across the internet, or more securely, externally via GPS or radio signals, in which it synchronises every machine on a network to.

Because NTP ensures each device is kept accurate to this source time and ignores the unreliable system clocks, the entire network can be kept synchronised to with each machine within fractions of a second of each other.

How GPS Keeps Clocks Accurate

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While many of us are aware of GPS (Global Positioning System) as a navigational tool and many of us have ‘sat navs’ in our cars, but the GPS network has another use that is also important to our day-to-day lives but few people realise it.

GPS satellites contain atomic clocks which transmit to earth an accurate time signal; it is this broadcast that satellite navigation devices use to calculate global position. However, there are other uses for this time signal besides navigation.

Nearly all computer networks are kept accurate to an atomic clock. This is because miniscule accuracies across a network can lead to until problems, from security issues to data loss. Most networks use a form of NTP (Network Time Protocol) to synchronise their networks, but NTP requires a main time source to sync to.

GPS is ideal for this, not only is it an atomic clocks source, which NTP can calculate UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) from, which means that the network will be synchronised to every other UTC network on the globe.

GPS is an ideal source of time as it is available literally everywhere on the planet as long as the GPS antenna has a clear view of the sky. And it is not only computer networks that require atomic clock time, all sorts of technologies require accurate synchronisation: traffic lights, CCTV cameras, air traffic control, internet servers, indeed many modern applications and technology without us realising is being kept true by GPS time.

Top use GPS as a source of time, a GPS NTP server is required. These connect to routers, switches or other technology and receive a regular time signal from the GPS satellites. The NTP server then distributes this time across the network, with the protocol NTP continually checking each device to ensure it is not drifting.

GPS NTP servers are not only accurate they are also highly secure. Some network administrators use internet time servers as a source of time but this can lead to problems. Not only is the accuracy of many of these sources questionable, but the signals can be hijacked by malicious software which can breach the network firewall and cause mayhem.

Keeping a Windows 7 Network Secure, Reliable and Accurate

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Many modern computer networks are now running Microsoft’s latest operating system Window 7, which has many new and improved features including the ability to synchronise time.

When a Windows 7 machine is booted up, unlike previous incarnations of Windows, the operating system automatically attempts to synchronise to a time server across the internet to ensure the network is running accurate time. However, while this facility is often useful for residential users, for business networks it can cause many problems.

Firstly, to allow this synchronisation process to happen, the company firewall must have an open port (UDP 123) to allow the regular time transference. This can cause security issues as malicious users and bots can take advantage of the open port to penetrate into the company network.

Secondly, while the internet time servers are often quite accurate, this can often depend on your distance from the host, and any latency caused by network or internet connection can further cause inaccuracies meaning that you system can often be more than several seconds away from the preferred UTC time (Coordinated Universal Time).

Finally, as internet time sources are stratum 2 devices, that is they are servers that do not receive a first-hand time code, but instead receive a second hand source of time from a stratum 1 device (dedicated NTP time server – Network Time Protocol) which also can lead to inaccuracy – these stratum 2 connections can also be very busy preventing your network from accessing the time for prolonged periods risking drifting.

To ensure accurate, reliable and secure time for a Windows 7 network, there is really no substitute than to use your own stratum 1 NTP time server. These are readily available from many sources and are not very expensive but the peace of mind they provide is invaluable.

Stratum 1 NTP time servers receive a secure time signal direct from an atomic clock source. The time signal is external to the network so there is no danger of it being hijacked or any need to have open ports in the firewall.

Furthermore, as the time signals come from a direct atomic clock source they are very accurate and don’t suffer any latency problems. The signals used can be either through GPS (Global Positioning System satellites’ have onboard atomic clocks) or from radio transmissions broadcast by national physics laboratories such as NIST in the USA (broadcast from Colorado), NPL in the UK (transmitted form Cumbria) or their German equivalent (from Frankfurt).

How the Moon Affects Time on Earth

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We take it for granted that a day is twenty-four hours. Indeed, our body’s circadian rhythm is finally tuned to cope with a 24-hour-day. However, a day on Earth was not always 24 hours long.

In the early days of the Earth, a day was incredibly short – just five hours long, but by the time of the Jurassic period,  when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, a day had lengthened to about 22.5 hours.

Of course now, a day is 24-hours and has been since humans evolved, but what has caused this gradual lengthening. The answer lies with the Moon.

The moon used to be a lot closer to the Earth and the effect of its gravity was therefore, a lot stronger. As the moon drives tidal systems, these were a lot stronger in the early days of the Earth, and the consequence was that the Earth’s spin slowed, the tugging of the moon’s gravity and tidal forces on the Earth, acing like a brake on the rotation of the planet.

Now the moon is farther away, and is continuing to move away even farther, however the effect of the moon is still felt on Earth, with a consequence that Earth’s day is still slowing down, albeit minutely.

With modern atomic clocks, it is now possible to account for this slowing and the global timescale used by most technologies to ensure time synchronisation, UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), has to account for this gradual slowing, otherwise, because of the extreme accuracy of atomic clocks, eventually day would slip into night as the Earth slowed and we didn’t adjust our clocks.

Because of this, once or twice a year, an extra second is added to the global timescale. These leap-seconds, as they are known, have been added since the 1970’s when UTC was first developed.

For many modern technologies where millisecond accuracy is required, this can cause problems. Fortunately, with NTP time servers (Network Time Protocol) these leap seconds are accounted for automatically, so any technologies hooked up to an NTP server need not worry about this discrepancy.

NTP servers are used by time sensitive technology and computer networks worldwide to ensure precise and accurate time, all the time, regardless of what the heavenly bodies are doing.

Press Release: Galleon Systems Launch New Website

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Atomic clock and NTP server specialists, Galleon Systems, have relaunched their website providing an improved platform to showcase their wide range of time synchronisation and network time server products.

Galleon Systems, who have been providing atomic clock and time server products to industry and commerce for over a decade, have redesigned their website to ensure the company continues to be world leaders in providing accurate, secure and reliable time synchronisation products.

With detailed descriptions of their product range, new product pictures and a revamped menu system to provided better functionality and user experience, the new website includes all of Galleons extensive range of NTP server systems (Network Time Protocol) and atomic clock synchronisation products.

Time servers from Galleon Systems are accurate to within a fraction of a second and are a secure and reliable method of getting a source of atomic clock time for computer networks and technological applications.

Using either GPS or the UKs MSF radio signal (DSF in Europe WWVB in the USA), time servers from Galleon Systems can keep hundreds of devices on a network accurate to within a few milliseconds of the international timescale UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).

Galleon Systems product range includes a variety of NTP time servers that can receive either GPS or radio referenced signals, dual systems that can receive both, simple radio controlled atomic clock servers, and a range of large network digital and analogue wall clocks.

Manufactured in the UK, Galleon Systems have a wide range of NTP and time synchronisation devices used worldwide by thousands of organizations who need accurate, reliable and precise time. For more information please visit their new website: www.galsys.co.uk