[ntp:questions] Philosophical question about strata

Lee Sailer lee.sailer at direcway.com
Fri Oct 7 14:18:26 UTC 2005


I had this thought about strata and I am hoping someone might have some
ideas to contribute.

Suppose you have two ntp clients that get their time from multiple
strata 1 servers.  They should be very accurate statum 2 servers as a
result.

Now later, you are configuring a new client, and for some reason you
have a choice.  You can use one of the stratum 1 servers, or the
stratum 2 server.  (I know, make another choice.  This is a theoretical
question, ok?)

It seems to me that the right choice is the stratum 2 server.  Am I
wrong?

However, if you configure this new client so that it uses one stratum 1
the stratum 2, I think the algorithm will choose the stratum 1.  Again,
am I wrong?

Basically, my thought is that it is possible for a stratum 2 source to
be better than a stratum 1 source, and likewise for a stratum n source
to be better than a stratum m source, where n > m.

Comments welcome.  No flames please.

Lee
Flamed online since 1977




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