Rocket.Time Server Edition

The least accurate and least reliable component of the typical server is the clock, unable to match the accuracy of even the cheapest wristwatch. No matter what you are using your servers for, your business needs demand accurate time stamps, and this can be disrupted by the constant drift of of your server’s clock.

Rocket.Time Server Edition puts your servers on the world time standard, giving them the ability to maintain split-second accuracy, automatically, 24×7. Common uses include:

• Rocket.Time for Web Servers: Ensures that your website transactions and log entries are recorded with precise timestamps.
• Rocket.Time for Mail Servers: Time-stamp all incoming and outgoing mail with split-second accuracy.
• Rocket.Time for Cisco VoIP Servers: Ensure that all VoIP phones in your enterprise display the correct time to within milliseconds, effectively putting an atomic clock on the desk of each employee.
• Rocket.Time for Database Servers: Give your databases the ability to conduct transactions with split-second accuracy.

Features

Rocket.Time Server Edition consists of a server component, running as an NT service, which is responsible for obtaining the correct time from the US Government-maintained time servers on the Internet. In addition, the server component ships with a management console which allows the operator to configure Rocket.Time (such as scheduling the frequency of updates, viewing drift statistics and so on).

• Professional-grade update kernel for Enterprise Servers.
• Runs as NT Service on Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003 Servers.
• Ability to schedule updates from once an hour to once a day, or at intervals that you specify.
• Update mechanism supports up to four additional redundant time servers, ensuring that updates will continue to be performed even if the top-tier Internet time sources experience outages.
• Highly accurate update kernel measures the propagation delay between your network and the Internet time servers, producing a reading that is typically accurate to within milliseconds.
• Rocket.Time starts as soon as the machine is powered up (independent of logging on) and typically checks and corrects the server clock within seconds of startup.
• Maintains a correction log, listing the date and time of each correction made, along with the average drift rate of the server clock.

Supported Platforms

• Windows® NT 4.0 Workstation or Server
• Windows® 2000 Professional or Server
• Windows® XP Personal or Professional
• Windows® 2003 Servers

Configuration

Both the time server and clients automatically detect each other on your network. The network configuration is fully automatic; simply install the server and clients and you are ready to go – no IP addresses to worry about!

Screenshots

Figure 1: Although the Rocket.Time Service is at the heart of the Server Edition, the software also ships with an application console which provides access to the configuration information, correction log and ‘time now’ summary.

Figure 2: The Rocket.Time NT Service is a highly accurate, yet lightweight service that keeps your server on the world time standard. Working as an NT service (on Windows NT,2000,XP and 2003), this component runs as soon as the server boots, independent of whether or not an interactive user is logged on.

Figure 3: The application console also provides convenient access to the Rocket.Time Service correction log, giving an indication of the average drift of your server’s clock.