Computer time synchronisation is becoming more and more important as we become ever reliant on the Internet for our day-to-day business.
Whether it doing the shopping from our PC at home or whether we work in a global trading company. The Internet is fast becoming the world’s new high street.
Time synchronisation is therefore more vital and relevant today than it has ever been. Time synchronisation errors are commonplace, just check your inbox you may find that email that has just arrived may technically not have been sent yet. This may not cause you any problems but what happens if you book and airline ticket on a computer system that is not synchronised? You may find the plane seat has been sold after you had bought it or you could have the last bid on an Internet auction site only to find somebody else wins the lot because their earlier bid was on a computer with a faster clock.
In some industries time synchronisation is not only essential, but without it trading would become impossible, just think of the stock exchange where millions are won and lost in seconds.
Fortunately time synchronisation is not the headache it used to be. It is now possible to connect to an accurate UTC (Coordinated Universal Time – a global standardised time scale based on the time told by atomic clocks) time source with relatively low cost equipment.
A GPS time server is a relatively inexpensive and simple device that receives a timing signal directly from a global positioning satellite. Because GPS satellites contain atomic clocks (essential in providing accurate positioning) the signal of which can be picked up and used to synchronise an entire network.
A dedicated GPS time server is relatively simple and straightforward to install and comprises of a GPS receiver equipped with NTP software (network time protocol – software used to synchronise a network) and a GPS antenna. The only difficulties faced with the installation of a GPS time server is that the antenna needs a good view of the sky to ensure it can receive the satellite information.
