What is NTP Time and How Does it Benefit Me?

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Maintaining accurate and synchronised time has never been so important for businesses and organisations. In today’s world, where so many transactions take place online, having a synchronised and accurate network time is crucial for businesses, especially those organisations that conduct their business over the internet or with other computer networks.

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Have the Olympics kept pace with precision timing?

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The accuracy of modern Olympic timing is made possible with the use of high quality timing devices, accurate synchronisation and atomic timing. Regular quartz oscillators are fairly accurate, but they still drift, which means without regular synchronisation, their accuracy would falter UY98UZDDVGGJ . To ensure all timing devices can achieve millisecond accuracy and precise synchronisation with one another, all Olympic timing devices are synchronised with GPS atomic clocks several times a day.

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The Perils of Online Time Servers

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For computer networks, accurate time is essential for preventing errors, fraud and ensures security. Everything from internet banking to air traffic control relies on precise and accurate time, but many organisations take unnecessary risks when it comes to the time on their networks and rely on online time servers instead of a dedicated NTP server

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Using Ethernet NTP Digital Wall Clocks

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Ethernet NTP digital wall clocks plug into an NTP times server using an Ethernet cable. This means that the time signal is sent from the NTP time server directly to the Ethernet NTP digital wall clock, maintaining its accuracy. The Ethernet digital wall clock never needs setting as it is automatically set by the time signal sent from the times server, which means it will always be accurate, and the Ethernet NTP digital wall clock requires no mains power or batteries as it gets its power form the Ethernet.

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Using NIST Time Servers

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The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) is one of the world’s leading atomic clock laboratories, and is the leading American time authority. Part of a constellation of national physics laboratories, NIST help ensure the worlds atomic clock time standard UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is kept accurate and is available for the American people to use as a time standard.

All sorts of technologies rely on UTC time. All the machines on a computer network are usually synchronised to source of UTC, while technologies such as ATM’s, closed-circuit television (CCTV) and alarm systems require a source of NIST time to prevent errors.

Part of what NIST does is to ensure that sources of UTC time are readily available for the technologies to utilise, and NIST offer several means of receiving their time standard.

The Internet

The internet is the easiest method of receiving NIST time and in most Windows based operating systems, the NIST time standard address is already included in the time and date settings, allowing easy synchronisation. If it isn’t, to synchronise to NIST you simply need to double click on the system clock (bottom right hand corner) and enter the NIST server name and address. A full list of NIST Internet servers, here:

The Internet, however, is not a particularly secure location to receive a source of NIST time. Any Internet time source will require and open port in the firewall (UDP port 123) for the time signal to get through. Obviously, any gap in a firewall can lead to security issues, so fortunately NIST provide another method of receiving their time.

NTP Time Servers

NIST, from their transmitter in Colorado, broadcasts a time signal that all of North America can receive. The signal, generated and kept true by NIST atomic clocks, is highly accurate, reliable and secure, received externally to the firewall by using a WWVB timeserver (WWVB is call sign for the NIST time signal).

Once received, the protocol NTP (Network Time Protocol) will use the NIST time code and distribute it around the network and will ensure each device keeps true to it, continually making adjustments to cope with drift.

WWVB NTP time servers are accurate, secure and reliable and a must-have for anybody serious about security and accuracy who wants to receive a source of NIST time.

The Worlds Atomic Clock Timekeepers

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When you set your watch to perhaps the speaking clock or the time on the internet, have you ever wondered who it is that sets those clocks and checks that they are accurate?

There is no single master clock used for the world’s timing but there are a constellation of clocks that are used as a basis for a universal timing system known as UTC (Coordinated Universal Time).

UTC enables all the world’s computer networks and other technology to talk to each other in perfect synchronicity which is vital in the modern world of internet trading and global communication.

But as mentioned controlling UTC is not down to one master clock, instead, a serious of highly precise atomic clocks based in different countries all work together to produce a timing source that is based on the time told by them all.

These UTC timekeepers include such notable organisations as the USA’s National Institute of Standards and Time (NIST) and the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) amongst others.

These organisations don’t just help ensure UTC is as accurate as possible but they also provide a source of UTC time available to the world’s computer networks and technologies.

To receive the time from these organisations, a NTP time server (Network Time Server) is required. These devices receive the broadcasts from places like NIST and NPL via long wave radio transmissions. The NTP server then distributes the timing signal across a network, adjusting individual system clocks to ensure that they are as accurate to UTC as possible.

A single dedicated NTP server can synchronize a computer network of hundreds and even thousands of machines and the accuracy of a network relying in UTC time from the broadcasts by NIST and NPL will also be highly precise.

The NIST timing signal is known as WWVB and is broadcast from Boulder Colorado in the heart of the USA whilst the UK’s NPL signal is broadcast in Cumbria in the North of England and is known as MSF – other countries have similar systems including the DSF signal broadcast out of Frankfurt, Germany.