Clocks and Time: IT's matter of synchronicity

Time is at best an abstract concept and yet one which we use in society and in our lives on a daily basis. Information Technology systems, perhaps more than our social behaviour, rely very heavily on events being timed as well... [ view full abstract ]

Time is at best an abstract concept and yet one which we use in society and in our lives on a daily basis. Information Technology systems, perhaps more than our social behaviour, rely very heavily on events being timed as well as synchronized.

This practical workshop will cover in particular "Network Time", or the idea of synchronizing the internal clocks of many thousands of local and remote machines. We shall look at some basic time related definitions, the history of time on the Internet as well as some networking and protocol basics related to time keeping and synchronization. Part of the workshop will be devoted to the practical matter of designing, installing, configuring as well as operating and maintaining an enterprise time based service which allows for systems to "know exactly what time it is". Some aspects of network time service with regards to security threats will also be covered. If there is time, we shall cover time keeping within the data centre as well as in VM environments.

Finally we shall consider a proposal to better co-ordinate our time servers within the wider CUCCIO led communities as well as with other corporate partners and network bandwidth providers.

This workshop is intended for curious and interested parties. It would help if attendees would have some basic networking or computing experience however these skill sets are not mandatory.

The author trusts this session will both inform and educate all who attend.

"Hoc tempus est tibi"