An Overview of NTP - CompTIA Network+ N10-007 Prof. Messer
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Does anyone work with NTP servers? I'm fairly new to IT and I've never heard of this.
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Not really. In a Windows environment, your PDC emulator is the master time source for your Windows environment.
This is the one device that you set to sync to an external time source. Other systems, like phone systems, switches, routers, etc, those should use the same external source as the PDC emulator does.
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@mary said in An Overview of NTP - CompTIA Network+ N10-007 Prof. Messer:
Does anyone work with NTP servers?
Yup, basically everyone. Those that don't generally work with SNTP servers (same thing, just a slightly less accurate, simpler system popular with Windows machines. Still quite accurate.) NTP is accurate like to a millisecond and SNTP to like half a second or something like that.
NTP is used everywhere. But it is often set by default. So basically every router, every Domain Controller, and nearly any IoT device or real (UNIX) server talk to NTP. Then, in the Windows world, we expect that the AD DC will act as a proxy to configure and push NTP data to the LAN.
Most shops work with NTP as clients, they talk to government or non-profit NTP servers. But larger companies, especially banks, run their own NTP servers. Time is time, so you only do this if you have no access to a reliable network and/or need an insanely accurate time source. Running your own NTP server can be nothing more than a relay of another master, or some people use GPS as a time source. But the serious ones like the government or banks use require a cesium fountain for accuracy and that ain't cheap. So they are limited to research and banking customers who need nanosecond accuracy every single time.
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@Dashrender said in An Overview of NTP - CompTIA Network+ N10-007 Prof. Messer:
Not really. In a Windows environment, your PDC emulator is the master time source for your Windows environment.
But IT gets its time from NTP by default (and every network I know.) So in your example, NTG is everywhere.
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So chances are you will never run or even see an NTP master. But you might run or see an NTP relay, almost certainly. You saw me turn one off (pillow over its face) over the weekend.
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In network almost every core device (routers, switches and servers) may be NTP Master or Server. It depends on network design who will be the NTP Master, for me is the device which is "closest" to Internet.
