Computers
are now part and parcel of our daily lives and we often take them for granted. Whether
we are starting our car, loading the washing machine or taking cash out of the
bank, a computer is behind it.

We are also
used to computers talking to each other, necessary when we are booking online tickets
or drawing cash from the bank. Computers communicate by the way of timestamps,
most computer transactions from sending and receiving emails to saving
documents are reliant on a time stamp. Timestamps are merely the time the
process commenced, next time you receive an email, check the time it was sent,
it is quite possible the email was sent after you had received it, this is
because the time on each machine is not synchronised.

For some
transactions it is necessary for computers to be perfectly synchronised, even a
few seconds difference between machines can have serious effects, such as
finding an airline ticket you had booked had been sold moments later to another
customer or you could draw your savings out of a cash machine and when your
account is empty you could quickly going to another machine and withdraw it all
again.

If machines
were not synchronised then many time sensitive transactions could not happen so
it is important that computers tell the same time. However, what time is best
to synchronise to and how to all machines know the correct time?

Clocks and
watches are everywhere but if you check the time on more than one device,
chances are they are telling time differently. It may be a matter of seconds
but as we have seen, seconds can make all the difference.

Fortunately
there is an international standard time called UTC (Universal Coordinated
Time), and the exact UTC time is broadcast by special radio transmissions or by
the GPS network as a time code.

Computers
can receive this time code by using a time server. Normally these servers use
NTP (Network Time Protocol) which converts the time to a language the computer
understands. NTP servers allow computers to synchronise to the exact same time
no matter where they are in the world.

Without NTP
time servers, computers would be unable to carry out task that we now take for
granted such as online shopping , trading on the stock exchange or even drawing
money from a cash machine.

About the author

Tags: airline ticket, bank computers, computer transactions, correct time, email check, gps network, radio transmissions, sensitive transactions, standard time, telling time, time clocks, time code, time stamp, universal coordinated time, utc time, washing machine, watches

Share This

Related Posts

• Methods of Industrial Computing
• Synchronise Time on Your PC using NTP Servers
• How to Configure Windows Server as a NTP Server
• Calling Cards Frauds and You
• Do Not Ignore The Importance Of A Parents Meeting