The Time Server Blog
How accurate is the time you receive?
Unfortunately many Internet time servers are wholly inaccurate, however, this free and easy to use tool by Galleon Systems lets you check a server accuracy and reliability. Free to download and complete with instructions – an essential tool for anybody relying on the Internet for UTC time.
To download please visit Galleons NTP server site:
Galleon’s NTP server checker:
One of the World’s leading suppliers of time servers are Galleon Systems based in the UK and Europe.
Their time servers provide:
* Automatic update of time with no user intervention required.
* Simple Installation
* Customised products: As the specialist supplier, with the widest product range of dedicated Time Servers in the World if we haven’t got the time synchronisation product you want contact us because we can modify the standard products to your specific requirements.
* Full product range, From Dedicated Rack Mount NTP Time Servers that synchronize the time of thousands of computers across a network to simple Atomic Clocks that connect to a single PC.
* Cost Effective by being a specialist in Time synchronisation, Galleon offers a full product range so you buy the correct product for you needs, not one designed for a Multinational corporation.
* Reliable, Galleon Atomic Clocks and NTP Time Servers are used by organizations world-wide and provide reliable time synchronization 24 hours a day 365 days a year.
* 3 Year warranty. Galleon offers a 3 year warranty on ServerARC, ServerGPS, WorkstationARC and WorkstationGPS NTP Time Server products
* Lifetime Technical support. At Galleon we believe that technical support should be free for as long as you want to use a Galleon product for.
* MSF and GPS: Uses the NPL MSF time signal or GPS satellites time. The MSF time signal provides the strongest radio time signal in the UK and can be received up to about a range of 937.5 miles. GPS satellites time can be received anywhere in the world. You can have both time sources linked to your Galleon NTP Time Server for redundancy in the event that one time source is not available.
Please given Galleon a call, before you LOSE TRACK OF TIME:
+44 (0)121 608 4433
Dedicated time servers are used throughout the world to ensure computer networks are synchronised. Not only does a synchronised network offer more security but synchronisation using a dedicated time server can offer legal protection.
Because dedicated time servers use such a secure and reliable method of keeping time (atomic clock signals from either the GPS network or radio broadcasts) the time can be legally audited to few milliseconds. However, networks synchronised using an Internet timing source can not be audited and this can leave these systems open to abuse or even fraud.
Dedicated time servers are also based behind a firewall ensuring the system is protected from any intrusion while an internet based timing source has to have access through the firewall through an open port.
Any company that requires security in its network or protection from fraud must ensure they are using either a GPS or radio referenced time server.
Atomic clocks use an atomic resonance frequency standard as their timekeeping element and are by far the most accurate chronometers possible with the latest Strontium based atomic clocks boasting a precision of a less than a second lost in several hundred million years.
The clocks maintain a continuous and stable time scale called International Atomic Time (TAI). However, for civil time, another time scale, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)which is derived from TAI, but synchronized using leap seconds to UTC, to keep it based on the rotation of the Earth.
UTC is a global timescale that is commonly used to synchronise the clocks on computer networks allowing machines from across the globe to communicate together and conduct time sensitive applications.
Unfortunately atomic clocks are highly expensive pieces of equipment and are generally only to be found in high technology physics laboratories or onboard satellites. However, several national physics laboratories broadcast the time told by their atomic clocks via a long wave radio transmission.
These signals are commonly picked up and utilized by radio controlled wall and desk clocks and by NTP time servers (Network Time Protocol).
The transmissions from the national standards agencies maintain an accuracy of 10-9 seconds per day (approximately 1 part in 1014). MSF is the signal broadcast by National Physical Laboratory in, Anthorn, Cumbria. Other countries boast their own signals the most common being the DCF77 transmission broadcast from Mainflingen near Frankfurt, Germany and the USA’s WWVB signal broadcast from Fort Collins, Colorado.
All these times signals work in a similar way. At the start of each second the strength of the signal is either reduced by between 6 and 10 dB
A time server is a computer server that reads the time from an accurate clock and distributes this information to its clients across a computer network.
The reference used by a time server is normally a UTC (coordinated universal time) time source. UTC is a global time scale adopted all over the world and based on the time told by atomic clocks The most common source for UTC time is now the GPS system (global positioning system).
The most widely-used protocol for distributing and synchronising time is Network Time Protocol (NTP) which has been around almost as long as the Internet itself, having been developed in 1985 by Professor David Mills.
NTP receives the time from the time server and then checks or clocks on its networks to see if they need advancing or retreat.
To prevent overload of networks requesting timing information, NTP is hierarchical. The term “stratum” is used to label the nearness to a stratum 0 server – that atomic clock. The higher the stratum number the further away the server is. A GPS time server is normally a stratum 1 device as it receives time from a stratum 0 device. However, stratum 2 and stratum 3 devices can still synchronise with each other.
Dedicated time servers are used despite the numerous Internet time sources available. The advantages of a dedicated time server is that the device is behind a firewall so preventing any security issues, dedicated time servers can also guarantee accuracy that is just not possible over the Internet.
The dedicated time server checks the time stamp from the UTC source (Coordinated Universal Time) and uses the information to calculate if the network clocks are drifting and adds or subtracts a second to match. The time server will do this at set intervals. Most time servers utilise NTP (network time protocol) although other protocols do exist NTP is by far the most widespread.
For NTP to distribute the time it first needs a timing source and this is where the differences in dedicated time servers come in. As UTC is based on the time told by atomic clocks, it is an atomic clocks that is the source for a time servers timing reference. Atomic clocks are extremely expensive, large, and require a multitude of maintenance engineers. For this reason they are only to be found in large scale physics laboratories.
However, the time from an atomic clock can still be utilised by using either a radio clock attached to a time server or a GPS clock. A radio clock is just a simple radio receiver that picks-up the long-wave signal broadcast by several national physics laboratories. This UTC signal is not available everywhere and the broadcast can be blocked by buildings, mountains and bad weather etc.
The other type of dedicated time server utilise the signals sent by the GPS satellites (global positioning system). These signals are available literally everywhere on the globe although the only downside is that a GPS antenna needs to have a clear view of the sky and therefore ideally needs to be situated on a roof which can cause some problems if the server room is along way from the top of the building.
Some dedicated time servers can actually receive both signals; the radio and GPS. In doing so they can continue receiving time signals even if one signal fails or gets temporarily blocked.
Galleon Systems and their The NTS 4000 MSF S and the NTS 4000 GPS S are possibly the two least expensive time servers available anywhere.
They are simple to use NTP time servers receiving accurate time from the a radio time signal (MSF) or the GPS network and using NTP can provide this synchronised time via a Ethernet port to any computer, server, switch, etc that conforms to the Network Time Protocol V3. And unbelievably they can process 1,000 NTP requests per minute.
The identical looking units are attractive pieces of kit too:
Time servers are essential in keeping computer networks synchronised without them many time sensitive transactions would be impossible to conduct. Time servers work by receiving a signal timing reference and distribute it to all devices on a network using the protocol NTP (Network Time Protocol). The time signal used by most time servers comes from a UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) source. UTC is based on the time told by atomic clocks and is used globally, allowing computers from across the world to be synchronized to the same time reference.
There are three methods that time servers can receive the UTC signal from. Firstly, the internet, although unsecured and without any guarantees of accuracy Internet time references are only suitable for networks where precision and security are not a concern.
The second method is via the GPS network which is available everywhere but only where an antenna has a clear view of the sky.
The third and simplest method to receive an accurate and secure UTC time reference is to use the national time and frequency broadcasts. In the UK the National Physical Laboratory transmits the British signal from Anthorn in Cumbria. This signal, known as MSF, can be received in most places in the UK although local topography can interfere with the transmission.
To receive the MSF broadcast a radio referenced NTP time server is required. This will receive the radio transmission via 65 kHz in long wave and distribute it amongst the network.
A radio based NTP server usually consists of a rack-mountable time server, and an antenna, consisting of a ferrite bar inside a plastic enclosure, which receives the radio time and frequency broadcast. The antenna should always be mounted horizontally at a right angle toward the transmission for optimum signal strength.
Similar national timing transmissions are broadcast from other countries in the US the signal is referred to as WWVB and is broadcast by the NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology) in Fort Collins, Colorado, other systems are broadcast in Frankfurt, Germany (DCF-77), Japan (JJY) and France ( TDF).
Computer networks rely on timekeeping for nearly all their applications, from sending an email to saving data, a timestamp is necessary for computer to keep track. All routers and switches need to run at the same rate, out of sync devices can lead to data being lost and even entire connections.
All PC’s and networking devices use clocks to maintain an internal system time. These clocks, called Real Time Clock chips (RTC) provide time and date information. The chips are battery backed so that even during power outages, they can maintain time.
However, personal computers are not designed to be perfect clocks, their design has been optimized for mass production and low-cost rather than maintaining accurate time. However, these internal clocks are prone to drift and although for many application this can be quite adequate, often machines need to work together on a network and if the computers drift at different rates the computers will become out of sync with each other and problems can arise particularly with time sensitive transactions.
For some transactions it is necessary for computers to be perfectly synchronised, even a few seconds difference between machines can have serious effects, such as finding an airline ticket you had booked had been sold moments later to another customer or you could draw your savings out of a cash machine and when your account is empty you could quickly going to another machine and withdraw it all again.
Time servers are like other computer servers in the sense they are usually located on a network. A time server gathers timing information, usually from an external hardware source and then synchronises the network to that time.
Most time servers use NTP (Network Time Protocol) which is one of the Internet’s oldest protocols still used, invented by Dr David Mills from the University of Delaware, it has been in utilized since 1985. NTP is a protocol designed to synchronize the clocks on computers and networks across the Internet or Local Area Networks (LANs).
NTP utilises an external timing reference and then synchronises all devices on the network to that time.
Often time servers are synchronised to a UTC (Coordinated Universal time) source which is the global standard time scale and allows computers all over the world to synchronised to exactly the same time. This has obvious importance in industries where exact timing is crucial such as the stock exchange or airline industry.
There are various sources that a time server can use as a timing reference. The Internet is an obvious source, however, internet timing references from the Internet such as nist.gov and windows.time can not be authenticated, leaving the time server and therefore the network vulnerable to security threats.
