Configuring a Time Provider Group in a Forced Scenario

Forced scenario is the default configuration that is set up during the installation. This configuration is set if all time consumers are in the same tree as the time provider.

In a forced scenario, Timesync uses one time provider and other servers synchronize their time with it. The time provider is a Single time server and other servers are Secondary time servers.

Configuration has the following advantages:

• Simple and easy configuration.
• Fewer than 30 NetWare servers. This limitation ensures that the Single time server is not overloaded with time requests.
• If all servers that need synchronization are in one tree, this is the default configuration after installation.
• Since the synchronization hierarchy is at two levels only, synchronization errors are minimized.

The disadvantages of this configuration are the following:

• This server configuration lacks fault tolerance. If the time server loses connection for an extended period of time, Secondary time servers will not sync with the network time. With only one time source, there is only one point of failure.
• This server configuration has a fan-out of around 30 servers only. The Single time server must be contacted by every server on the network. This leads to heavy loading of the Single time server and communication problems on networks with slow or over utilized LAN/WAN links.

The first server installed in the tree is configured by default as the Single time server. Subsequent servers are configured as Secondary time servers that seek time from the Single time server.

Single time servers cannot coexist with Primary and Reference time servers. This also implies that the Single time server does not exchange time information with Primary and Reference time servers. Single time servers advertise their existence through SLP/SAP in TCP/IPX^TM. Therefore, other servers installed in the same tree subsequently will not be configured as Single time server. These servers will be configured as Secondary time servers with the Single time server as the time source.

To set up Timesync in a forced scenario, complete these steps:

1. Configure one server as the Single time server.

2. Configure all other servers as Secondary time servers and specify the Single time server as the time source for these servers.

For more information about Timesync SET parameters, see Using SET Parameters to Configure Timesync.