On 23-02-17 16:12, Peter wrote:
> But, in this case could it not be smarter? We have separate pools for
> worldwide, europe, country level already. Now, it seems to me that around
> Europe my str 1 server provides very good timekeeping. Outside of Europe
> not so much.

This is usually a temporary thing, affecting only a very limited number of 
servers
(you can check the graphs like http://www.pool.ntp.org/zone/europe).


> What would be the problem (aside from the effort to set it up) to have an
> "AND" system in tiers. So for example you have a monitoring station
> (trusted people with good connectivity can donate their server by running
> it as a process) in at least all continents and preferably at the country
> level. So, for country level you need to have a good rating with any
> monitoring stations in your country that checks you. At continent level you
> must have a good rating for any in your continent that tests you, and at
> global pool level, you must always present a good result, whichever station
> probes you.

Doing an AND for each level is the only way to go in my opinion. That is, if you
really, really want to put in the effort required for multiple monitors. Do our
clients have any practical problem right now?

What you are doing basically in this case is to set up multiple independent 
pools
with their own local monitoring system. As far as I know, all software is on
github, so you can test this relative easily. Ideally you deploy a monitor in 
each
network of each company providing connectivity in that area.

Note that this solution assumes connections are available from your central
scoring/DNS system to each monitor. This, while you know you have connectivity
issues to an NTP server in the very same network. What do you do if you lose one
monitor? Take down the whole area?

Anyway, if you are willing to experiment, I am very curious to the results! I
expect scores to actually drop faster than they do now.


> That way, any server in the global pool, you know is on a well connected
> host. But, those that have bad transatlantic peering could still be
> providing really good results more locally.

This brings one other aspect to mind. How many clients will benefit from this
approach? Most clients simply use the pre-configured vendor pool or the global 
pool
'pool.ntp.org'. The clients taking the trouble to configure their (s)ntp-client
with a country or continental pool usually know what they are doing and 
configure
some more known servers as well. They deploy some kind of continuous ntpd 
process
that does not even know whether a server is temporary out of the pool, unless 
they
lose connectivity...

I guess the only situation that benefits from a local, independent pool system 
is
within countries where network traffic is actively filtered at the border 
(China,
N-Korea, etc.)

Arnold
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