NTP (Network Time Protocol)

NTP stands for Network Time Protocol and provides a reliable way for transmitting and receiving time over TCP/IP networks and is useful for synchronizing the internal clock of computers to a common time source. Please note that NTP is designed to operate in an environment with Internet access. However, it can be used even without Internet access, although its accuracy will be diminished. NTP (Network Time Protocol) is a tiered time distribution system with redundancy capability. NTP (Network Time Protocol) measures delays within the network and within the algorithms on the machine on which it is running. Using these tools and techniques, it is able to synchronize clocks to within milliseconds of each other when connected on a Local Area Network and within hundreds of milliseconds of each other when connected to a Wide Area Network.

Why do people need NTP (Network Time Protocol)? The are quite a lot of applications that rely on NTP (Network Time Protocol) and atomic time servers. The banking industry, for example relies heavily on NTP (Network Time Protocol) in order to coordinate transactions done in the different parts of the world real-time. Security software uses the high precision NTP (Network Time Protocol) provides in order to protects against certain types of attack by time-stamping transactions, and refusing to honor requests that appear to be "replays" of previously-honored requests.

Implementing NTP (Network Time Protocol) is easy and takes only several steps. First, locate Internet atomic time servers (2-3 at least). Second, select a computer in your network that will act as a NTP (Network Time Protocol) time server. Configure both the server and clients - and you've successfully implemented NTP (Network Time Protocol) for your network.