Alibaba Cloud NTP server

Internal and public NTP servers

NTP is used to synchronize the computer time in a network.

The consistency of time and time zone is important to ECS instances because it can affect the task execution results. For example, when you update a database or analyze logs, the time sequence has a significant impact on the results. When you run business on ECS instances, you must standardize the time zone of the involved instances to avoid problems such as logical confusion and network request errors. In addition, you can use NTP servers to synchronize the local time of all ECS instances in a network.

ECS provides a high-precision NTP server for your convenience. The ntp.cloud.aliyuncs.com server offers a globally distributed NTP service that uses Stratum 1 servers. Stratum 1 servers are suitable for industries that require precise timing, such as finance, communication, scientific research, and astronomy. The NTP service is also used to synchronize the local time between ECS instances and other cloud services. The following table describes the domain names of Alibaba Cloud NTP servers in various networks.

Other Alibaba Cloud public services

The following table describes other public services provided by Alibaba Cloud.

References

• Configure the NTP service for Windows instances
• Time setting: Synchronize NTP servers and change time zone for Linux instances