> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of Jonathan > > For many years we have run stratum 2 NTP servers on some of our mail > gateways. The primary purpose is to provide an NTP service to assorted > RFC1918 networks. We are planning to virtualise those mail gateways, > and so we need to find a new home for NTP. I am aware that we could > purchase dedicated GPS-based stratum 0/1 NTP servers, but I don't want > the hassle of getting a good GPS signal in to the heart of our data > centres and our time sync requirements aren't too tight. Before > purchasing three dedicated 1U servers which I plan to site at three > different (geographically close) campuses, I thought I'd ask if anyone > has any cheap/neat solutions which can support multiple NICs/VLANs and > have a generally drift-free clock. Bonus points for kit available off > the shelf in the UK. Apologies if my terminology offends any NTP gurus; > hopefully my requirements are clear.
Do you have special requirements? Even for providing NTP to assorted RFC1918 networks, most people are fine with running a normal NTP server without special hardware, on normal servers. I know I always configure a virtualization host (vmware, xen, virtualbox, whatever) to sync with something upstream, and then all the VM guests sync with the host. It just so happens the Windows Servers are vm guests, and the Windows Servers provide NTP to the windows clients and the LAN. While I certainly acknowledge a lot of degrees of indirection in this configuration, everything works to the degree that's acceptable for most people. Not too long ago, I started deploying openindiana / virtualbox and decomissioning vmware esx. I haven't bothered, but if I want to eliminate some of the indirection, I'd run the NTP server directly on openindiana. Bypass windows server and the virtualbox guest addititions that are necessary for keeping the windows server accurate. Depending on the hypervisor you're choosing ... Even if you have special needs ... You might be able to continue providing NTP from the hypervisor just as you previously provided from the OS that you're now going to virtualize. For that matter ... Depending on your time source hardware and your hypervisor, you might be able to USB or PCI pass-thru the hardware time source to a guest OS, and continue exactly as you were before. _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
