Murali B.V.

Agenda
History

What is the Diff b/w NTP and SNTP

How NTP works? Internals of NTP About Brocade SNTP
Limitations

Configurations
Display Commands

Introduction
Normally PC maintains two types of clocks internally
Software Clock

Hardware clock

The software clock runs when the computer is turned on and

stops when the computer is turned off. The hardware clock uses a battery and runs even while the computer is turned off. Both clock times are not unique. What is the need for standard and Accurate time ?
What are the protocols are supported for this ?
Three major timing protocols are supported.

Timing protocols

NTP - Introduction
NTP is a protocol for synchronizing the clocks on computers

over packet-switched data networks

NTP delivers accurate and reliable time in spite of faults in

the network
Provides a connectionless service (UDP in the Transport

Layer)
NTP is used on Internet

NTP - Clock Strata

NTP uses a hierarchical organization of clocks
Stratum 0.- Composed by: Atomic Clocks, GPS Clocks. Stratum 1 - Primary Time Servers.- Computers attached to stratus 0 devices They act as servers for requests from Stratus 2 Stratum 2 Computers sending NTP requests to Time Servers in Stratum 1 Computers in this level will reference to several time servers to synchronize their clocks S2 Computers will peer with another S2 computers to provide more reliable and robust time for all devices in the peer group They act as servers for requests from Stratus 3

NTP - Clock Strata

Stratum 3, 4,

Computers employ the same NTP function as in Stratum 2 Potentially up to 16 levels

NTP - Determining Time

Timestamps exchanged between the server and clients

(subnet peers)

NTP Data packet

LI = leap indicator

VN = version number Strat = Stratum (0-15) Poll = poll intervall Prec = Precision

Diff b/w NTP and SNTP

NTP : Network Time Protocol (RFC 1305) SNTP : Simple Network Time Protocol (RFC 4330) Imp Points:
NTP protocol packets are entirely interchangeable with SNTP protocol

packets. a NTP server cannot differentiate a request for time originating from a NTP client or SNTP client.

The difference between the NTP and SNTP protocols lie in the

algorithms used to implement the protocols. NTP uses complex algorithms to calculate accurate time. SNTP is a simplified sub-set of the algorithms used by the NTP protocol.

Contd..
SNTP is ideal for synchronising computers at the leaves of a

network. It is ideally suited to less powerful processors, such as microcontrollers and embedded systems, which do not require the accuracy of NTP.

Limitations

The Brocade device can be configured both as an SNTP server

and as an SNTP client. Brocade device to consult up to three SNTP servers for the current system time and date.

Config and Display

SNTP as a client : Command : sntp server 208.99.8.95
Syntax: [no] sntp server { <ip-address> | <hostname> | ipv6 <ipv6-

address> } [<sntp-version>] [ authentication-key <key-ID> <keystring>]

SNTP as a Server : Command : sntp server-mode use-local-clock authenticationkey abc123

Syntax: [no] sntp server-mode [ use-local-clock [ stratum <stratum-

number> ] ] [authentication-key <key-string> ]

Contd
Display Commands show sntp associations

show sntp status

Contd..
SNTP Server Information