The Importance of Synchronizing Time

In a single server environment, the server's internal clock is adequate to maintain a common and consistent time source for the network.

For a multiple-server network, NDS (like many applications that use time stamps) requires that servers agree on time.

Time synchronization offers three benefits:

• Applications that run on your server provide accurate time stamps to events. Messaging and collaboration applications and databases all benefit from synchronized time.
• Workstations can be configured to get their time from servers, taking synchronized time benefits to locally-run applications.
• NDS applies correct time stamps to NDS events.

When changes are made to NDS objects, the changes can be made to different replicas on different servers. These changes must be enacted in the order in which they were requested.

An example of this would be one administrator renaming an object and another moving the object. If these events were applied out of sequence, the object might not be renamed because it would not exist in the original context.

NDS records the time of each event with a time stamp. When NDS actually modifies the database, the particular event occurs in the time and order that it was intended. NDS also uses time stamps to record time values for the network and set expiration dates.