Submitted by: Richard N Williams(1,010) Galleon Systems Log in to become a member of Richard N Williams's Fan Club!
Precision and time synchronisation is highly important for modern computer networks, without synchronisation many time sensitive transactions would be impossible to carry out.
The internal clock in computers does keep time and date information but these Real Time Chips are not designed to keep perfect time as computers are mass produced and optimized for low cost rather than being perfect clocks.
Of course for a lot of applications this can be more than adequate but for time-sensitive transactions such as online purchasing not having a network that is synchronised can cause errors in transactions and can even leave the network vulnerable to fraud.
Fortunately Windows Server from 2000 onwards has a time synchronisation utility built in call windows time (w32time.exe) this can be configured to allow the machine to be used as time server.
Windows time uses a form of NTP (Network Time Protocol) which was developed over 20 years ago. It uses an algorithm to synchronise time on a network. NTP (version 4) can maintain time over the public Internet to within 10 milliseconds (1/100 th of a second) and can perform even better over LANs with accuracies of 200 microseconds (1/5000 th of a second) under ideal conditions.
NTP uses a single time reference and synchronises all machines on the network to that time. I t can be configured to both synchronise a network using the internal clock or an external time source.
Note: Microsoft strongly recommends that you configure a time server with a hardware source rather than from the internet where there is no authentication.
To configure the Windows Time service to use an external time source, click Start, Run and type regedit then click OK.
In the right pane, right-click Period, then click Modify.
In the Edit DWORD Value box, under Value Data, type 24 then OK
Exit Registry Editor
Click Start, then Run then type the following and press Enter:
Net stop w32time & & net start w32time
Network Time Protocol (NTP) is an Internet protocol used for the transfer of accurate time, providing time information along so that a precise time can be obtained
To enable the Network Time Protocol; NTPserver, locate and click:
In the right pane, right-click NtpServer, then Modify, in the Edit DWORD Value under Value Data type In the right pane, right-click NtpServer, then Modify, in the Edit DWORD Value under Value Data type the Domain Name System ( DNS ), each DNS must be unique and you must append 0x1 to the end of each DNS name otherwise changes will not take effect.
In the right pane, right-click MaxPosPhaseCorrection, then Modify, in the Edit DWORD Value box, under Base, click Decimal, under Value Data, type a time in seconds such as 3600 (an hour) then click OK.
In the right pane, right-click MaxNegPhaseCorrection, then Modify.
In the Edit DWORD box under base, click Decimal, under value data type the time in seconds you want to poll such as 3600 (polls in one hour)
Exit Registry Editor
Now to restart windows time service, click Start, Run (or alternatively use the command prompt facility) and type:
net stop w32time & & net start w32time
And on each computer, other than the time server, type:
W32tm/ -s a nd the time server should be up and running
Richard N Williams is a technical author and a specialist in the telecommunications and network time synchronisation industry helping to develop dedicated NTP clocks. Please visit us for more information about NTP and other network time server solutions
This author of this Article has choosen to make this article available with free reprint rights. Click here to copy this article.
Was
this article helpful to you? Leave a Public Comment or Question:
This Article has been viewed 31 times.
Article added to SearchWarp.com on Tuesday, July 01, 2008 View other articles written by Richard N Williams(1,010)
If you found this article
interesting, you may want to check out:
Disclaimer: All information on this site is
provided for informational purposes only! By no means is any
information presented herein intended to substitute for the advice
provided to you by any health care or other professional or
organization.
