Equinix Precision Time

Equinix Precision Time provides accurate, secure, and reliable time to enterprise applications connected to Equinix Fabric in North and South America, EMEA, and APAC.

Equinix Precision Time sources time from redundant GNSS (GPS) receivers with antennas strategically located within the Equinix IBX infrastructure. The time source servers distribute accurate time over Equinix Fabric, our high-performance network backbone.

The Need for Accurate Time

Clocks included in hardware systems are inexpensive quartz oscillators that have a tendency to drift over time. Inaccurate clocks result in inaccurate timing that can cause a loss of synchronization across networks. Timing inaccuracies can range from milliseconds to seconds, and even minutes, if left unchecked for an extended period of time. Such timing inaccuracies can result in network operational issues large enough to lead to mission failure.

When an application depends on accurate time, it must use a time source outside the built-in system clocks. If the application has Equinix Fabric connectivity, it can synchronize with the EPT Timebase for accurate time.

Key Features

Equinix Precision Time provides the following capabilities:

Time Protocols

• Precision Time supports the Network Time Protocol (NTPv3 and NTPv4) and the Precision Time Protocol (PTPv2).
• Clients synchronize time by connecting directly to Precision Time NTP or PTP primary sources.

Service Tiers

Precision Time offers separate service tiers for NTP and PTP.

• NTP Service Tiers

  • NTP Enterprise includes the following additional configuration options compared to NTP Standard:

    • Set IP addresses, network mask, and gateway of the EPT servers.
    • Connect to a Network Edge device or Fabric Cloud Router, in addition to an Equinix Fabric port.
    • MD5 authentication.

  • NTP Standard uses pre-set values for IP addresses, network mask, and gateway.

• PTP Service Tiers

  • All PTP service tiers support:
    • Configuration of IP addresses, network mask, and gateway of the EPT servers.
    • Selection of Multicast, Unicast, or Hybrid modes.
    • Connectivity via an Equinix Fabric port.
    • Configuration of PTP parameters.

The service tier determines the number of NTP or PTP clients that you can synchronize on your side using direct connections to the Precision Time NTP or PTP primary sources. For more on direct connectivity, see Network Models and Time Synchronization.

Estimated Client Capacity

The following table provides an estimate of the number of clients you can synchronize per second. Client rates are shown for both the NTP and PTP protocols. These numbers assume that NTP clients are sending packets at a rate of no more than 1 per second, and PTP clients are receiving Sync packets and sending Delay Request packets at a rate of no more than 16 per second. The actual number of clients you can synchronize depends on the combination and configuration of your system hardware.

	Clients	IP Config	Port Type	MD5 Auth	PTP Parameters
NTP Standard	1,000	Fixed	Fabric port	No	–
NTP Enterprise	2,000	Configurable	Fabric port, Network Edge, Fabric Cloud Router	Yes	–
PTP Standard	20	Configurable	Fabric port	–	Yes
PTP Enterprise	100	Configurable	Fabric port	–	Yes

Accuracy

• Precision Time PTP provides timing accuracy within 50 microseconds of UTC for local connections.
• For optimal performance, Equinix recommends connecting to Precision Time from assets located in the same metro as the timing service. Accuracy for remote connections may vary slightly.
• Actual time accuracy depends on a combination of the consumption model in use and the physical distance between the client device and the Precision Time service location. In practice, end devices might achieve accuracy better than the stated tolerance.

Availability

Precision Time uses a redundant architecture in every region. Each region includes at least two metros that act as time sources.

• North America: Connect to these service locations: Silicon Valley (SV), New York (NY), or Toronto (TR). South American connections can also use São Paulo (SP) in addition to the above North American service locations.
• Europe: Connect to these service metros: London (LD), Amsterdam (AM), or Frankfurt (FR).
• Asia-Pacific: Connect to these service locations: Tokyo (TY), Hong Kong (HK), Singapore (SG), and Sydney (SY).

Each of these metros has redundant GNSS (GPS) receivers with the antennas and time server infrastructure in at least two geo-distributed IBX data centers. Within each of these data centers, Precision Time connects your services to two timing servers that act as primary and secondary servers over a redundant switching infrastructure.

Security

Precision Time is distributed over Equinix Fabric, a state-of-the-art private network, so time packets are never exposed to the public internet.

Precision Time infrastructure is installed and secured inside Equinix state-of-the-art IBX data centers. Our data centers meet the highest standards of security, certification, and sustainability. Additionally, Equinix Precision Time services can only be provisioned through the Customer Portal, which requires authentication with your customer account credentials.

NTP Enterprise also allows for the use of MD5 Authentication. Customers can securely upload their symmetric MD5 keys to our Portal, and they will be deployed on their NTP service.

Monitoring and Alerting

Equinix Precision Time monitors performance and collects data from both the primary timing server and SLA monitoring servers in remote IBX data centers. Alerts are generated and sent to support teams for analysis. Alarms are triggered when SLA thresholds are breached, or when outages threaten Precision Time performance, so that potential problems can be addressed before they become issues. To monitor your Precision Time resources, refer to Equinix Observability.

Use Cases

Getting accurate time is an important requirement for both consumer and business applications. Although the required level of reliability, security, and accuracy depends on individual use cases, security and reliability are critical for all enterprise applications. In certain vertical markets, mission critical applications require the highest possible degrees of precision to meet regulatory compliance and mandates.

• Financial Services – High-frequency trading platforms require accurate time to maintain an ordered sequence of transactions. The trading ecosystem is composed of digital stock and commodities exchanges, traders, and FinTech companies.
• Enterprise Applications – As applications become more geographically distributed, systems are challenged to distribute transactional databases, ensure the accuracy of ordering logs, and analyze and prevent online attacks. A narrow-drift offset from a secure and reliable time source is necessary to resolve these challenges.
• Broadcasting – Audio and video feeds are sent separately to end devices. If the time between these feeds is not synchronized, “lip sync” errors can occur, degrading the quality of service. Accordingly, the broadcasting industry has specific standards (SMPTE 2110) for accurate time synchronization between the audio and video feeds.
• Gaming – Online gaming and e-sports platforms require accurate time synchronization to ensure proper functionality (for example, a bullet hitting a target), and the correct order of play in multi-player games. This problem grows when players are geographically distributed.
• Telecommunications – Telecom service providers are required to maintain precise synchronization of their infrastructure. Managing billing and other customer facing infrastructure also requires accurate timing. Poor timing synchronization can result in dropped calls, poor customer service, and unreliable data.
• Manufacturing – To maintain seamless manufacturing processes, manufacturing operations (including process automation, MRP systems, and logistics systems) have become reliant on accurate time synchronization across all systems and infrastructure.
• Using Anycast to distribute Precision Time service – When users have larger NTP network requirements or needs across a network domain, Network Edge with Anycast topology can be considered for NTP-only service distribution. See Use Cases for details about this topology and configuration.

For technical specifications, see the Equinix Precision Time data sheet.