Technology Is Supposed to Be Simple, Right?
In his comment to the one of my NTP articles, Joe said:
This is part of the problem with NTP. It's way more complicated then it needs to be. You shouldn't have to understand so much of it to use it on your routers. Take a look at openntpd. It's free and runs on bsd or linux.
I have to disagree with him on several counts:
- NTP is supposed to solve a pretty hard problem of synchronizing multiple independent time sources over communication paths with unpredictable delay and jitter. Considering the limitations it's faced with, it does an amazingly good job.
- NTP configuration on IOS is no more complex than the openntpd configuration if the only thing you want is to do is to configure an upstream NTP server. The only commands you need are ntp server and ntp master.
However, the most important point, in my opinion, is the difference between "aiming for a short recipe" and "understanding the technology". If the only task you ever need to perform is to configure upstream NTP servers, don't even bother to read the IOS documentation or my article, you don't need more than a single configuration command … but then, when things really break, you'll be in trouble.
Likewise, the only thing some people want to know about OSPF are the following two commands:
router ospf 1
network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0
There are others, however, that might need a slightly more in-depth understanding of OSPF principles, operations, design, configuration and troubleshooting… and if you ignore those fundamentals you’ll have fun time when things go south.
Companies like Symmetricom http://www.symmttm.com/ have huge product lines that would meet any possible need for timing.
I never fully understood the need for accurate timing until I went to a timing conference and learned just how elaborate a timing network can be, and how useful precision is in resolving network incidents (security or failure).
1U appliance can support 200,000 NTP Clients
Varying Oscillator choices depending on your needs.
Can use CDMA or GPS.
Devices also Support IEEE1588 (PTP)
I have a hard time thinking of why you would NOT want your Network devices to just be NTP Clients and use the 1U Stratum 1 Appliances. It removes any dependency on the Internet and provides significantly better service.
Speaking of Tom Thomas, do you know what is he working on now? A new book perhaps? Just curious...
network 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 area 0
:)
0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0
YM: [email protected]
sorry forgot to leave my detail.
Same goes the way they use access list. Why so tricky.
Wan T
ym: [email protected]