The Task Definitionssection provides detailed process task definitions.The process details are described in terms of goals, performance indicators, inputs, outputs, and individual tasks. The Process Definitionssection provides an overview of the process definitions used to accomplish NTP management.The Example NTP Deploymentsection provides NTP deployment examples with sample configurations for WAN, high stratum campus, and low stratum campus time distribution networks.The Overviewsection provides background information on network element hardware related to system time, a technological overview of NTP, and key design aspects for the NTP architecture.The Terminologysection provides general definitions of terms around time synchronization.The information provided by this document is presented in several major sections: This can be customized by an organization to meet internal objectives. You can use this article as a hypothetical procedure and an informational example. This document describes a hypothetical process definition for network management function management for the Network Time Protocol (NTP). However, if proper attention is not given to the often-overlooked principle of time synchronization, those efforts are ineffective. In these cases, great expense is incurred when you deploy network management systems and direct engineering resources to analyze the collected performance data. Based in the business models, and the services that are provided, the characterization of network performance is considered an important competitive service differentiator. Network time synchronization, to the degree required for modern performance analysis, is an essential exercise. The foundation of many metric methodologies is the measurement of time. The need for greater insight into network characteristics has led to significant research efforts that are targeted at important metrics and measurement capabilities to characterize network behavior. Internet Protocol (IP) based networks have quickly advanced from the traditional best effortdelivery model to a model where performance and reliability need to be quantified and, in many cases, guaranteed with Service Level Agreements (SLAs). If your network is live, ensure that you understand the potential impact of any command. All of the devices used in this document started with a cleared (default) configuration. The information in this document was created from the devices in a specific lab environment. This document is not restricted to specific software and hardware versions. Clock Technology and Public Time Servers.Prerequisites RequirementsĬisco recommends that you have knowledge of this topic: This document describes the best practices to design Network Time Protocol.

Online time clock server