Elements of the Time Synchronization Solution

At least two elements are involved in the time synchronization solution, that is, the method of time synchronization and the selection of time reference sources.

• In the architecture of the current time synchronization networking, the common method is to implement time synchronization according to the Network Time Protocol (NTP) and the Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP).
• The selection of time reference sources aims to provide the standard reference time for the time synchronization network. This ensures the accuracy of the time reference in the entire network. A common time reference source is the GPS satellite.

Impact on System Performance

If time synchronization is implemented in client/server mode described in the NTP protocol, the message frame between the NTP client and the NTP server is 128 bytes. Therefore, time synchronization does not affect the performance of network transmission. If a great number of NTP clients request to connect to the NTP server at the same time, these connections consume mass resources, such as the CPU and the memory of the NTP server. As a result, the performance of the NTP server is affected.

Therefore, if you use the NTP protocol to construct a time synchronization network, the number of NTP nodes under an NTP server should not exceed 300. If the number exceeds 300, the performance of the NTP server may be affected. The interval for the time synchronization request of an NTP client should be 30 minutes or longer. In addition, you need to reduce the probability of concurrent requests.

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