Understanding the Precision Time Protocol

For many financial, scientific, and enterprise applications, you've just got to have the most accurate time possible. In these instances, getting the time from a remote time server on the Internet just doesn't meet your needs. So, you need something better. With proper hardware, PTP can keep your network time synchronized to picosecond accuracy. The whole explanation of PTP is rather complex, so allow me to simplify things a bit.

An overview of PTP

Unlike NTP, PTP cannot obtain its time from a remote time server that's out on the internet. Instead, PTP can only be used within a Local Area Network (LAN) and will obtain its time from a local source. This local time source, which is usually called the Grandmaster Clock, will most likely obtain its time from a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite, and will then synchronize the clocks on the other network devices to the GPS time. To do this, the Grandmaster Clock sends...