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NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

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11–20 of 218 posts

Re: NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

#11
post #5

Can anybody expand on the implications of this? Being unfamiliar with it, it's hard to tell if this is a minor blip that happens all the time, or if it's potentially a major issue that could cause cascading errors equal to the hype of Y2K.

If your computer was using it as your time server and you didn't have alternatives configured your clock my have drifted a few seconds.

Re: NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

#12
This was an NTP 0 server right? What is the actual failback mechanism when that level of NTP server fails?

This is some level of eldritch magic that I am aware of, but not familiar with but am interested in learning.

Re: NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

#13
post #5

Can anybody expand on the implications of this? Being unfamiliar with it, it's hard to tell if this is a minor blip that happens all the time, or if it's potentially a major issue that could cause cascading errors equal to the hype of Y2K.

Google has their own fleet of atomic clocks and time servers. So does AWS. So does Microsoft. So does Ubuntu. They're not going to drift enough for months to cause trouble. So the Internet can ride through this, mostly.

The main problem will be services that assume at least one of the NIST time servers is up. Somewhere, there's going to be something that won't work right when all the NIST NTP servers are down. But what?

Re: NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

#14
Wind gusts were reaching 125 MPH in Boulder county, if anyone’s curious. A lot of power was shut off preemptively to prevent downed power lines from starting wildfires. Energy providers gave warning to locals in advance. Shame that NIST’s backup generator failed, though.

Re: NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

#15
post #13
post #5

Can anybody expand on the implications of this? Being unfamiliar with it, it's hard to tell if this is a minor blip that happens all the time, or if it's potentially a major issue that could cause cascading errors equal to the hype of Y2K.

Google has their own fleet of atomic clocks and time servers. So does AWS. So does Microsoft. So does Ubuntu. They're not going to drift enough for months to cause trouble. So the Internet can ride through this, mostly. The main problem will be services that assume at least one of the NIST time servers is up. Somewhere, there's going to be something that won't work right when all the NIST NTP servers are down. But wh…

I know this is HN, but the internet is pretty low on the list of things NIST time standards are important for.

Re: NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

#17
post #13
post #5

Can anybody expand on the implications of this? Being unfamiliar with it, it's hard to tell if this is a minor blip that happens all the time, or if it's potentially a major issue that could cause cascading errors equal to the hype of Y2K.

Google has their own fleet of atomic clocks and time servers. So does AWS. So does Microsoft. So does Ubuntu. They're not going to drift enough for months to cause trouble. So the Internet can ride through this, mostly. The main problem will be services that assume at least one of the NIST time servers is up. Somewhere, there's going to be something that won't work right when all the NIST NTP servers are down. But wh…

Atomic clock non-expert here, what does having a fleet of atomic clocks entail and why would the hyperscalers bother?

Re: NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

#18
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has their own fleet of atomic clocks and time servers. So does AWS. So does Microsoft. So does Ubuntu. They're not going to drift enough for months to cause trouble. So the Internet can ride through this, mostly. The main problem will be services that assume at least one of the NIST time servers is up. Somewhere, there's going to be something that won't work right when all the NIST NTP servers are down. But wh…

I know this is HN, but the internet is pretty low on the list of things NIST time standards are important for.

But pretty high on the list that NIST NTP is important for (since it leaves the building through the internet).

Re: NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

#19
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has their own fleet of atomic clocks and time servers. So does AWS. So does Microsoft. So does Ubuntu. They're not going to drift enough for months to cause trouble. So the Internet can ride through this, mostly. The main problem will be services that assume at least one of the NIST time servers is up. Somewhere, there's going to be something that won't work right when all the NIST NTP servers are down. But wh…

I know this is HN, but the internet is pretty low on the list of things NIST time standards are important for.

could you list 3 things that you think are more important than the internet? (I know the internet is going to be fine; I just want to understand what you think ranks higher globally...)

Re: NTP at NIST Boulder Has Lost Power

#20
post #17
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has their own fleet of atomic clocks and time servers. So does AWS. So does Microsoft. So does Ubuntu. They're not going to drift enough for months to cause trouble. So the Internet can ride through this, mostly. The main problem will be services that assume at least one of the NIST time servers is up. Somewhere, there's going to be something that won't work right when all the NIST NTP servers are down. But wh…

Atomic clock non-expert here, what does having a fleet of atomic clocks entail and why would the hyperscalers bother?

Having clocks synchronized between your servers is extremely useful. For example, having a guarantee that the timestamp of arrival of a packet (measured by the clock on the destination) is ALWAYS bigger than the timestamp recorded by the sender is a huge win, especially for things like database scaling.

For this though you need to go beyond NTP into PTP which is still usually based on GPS time and atomic clocks

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