It is recommended that an organisation should choose between two to four local systems to be stratum-2 servers. The local server systems do not have to be reserved systems - they can do other work. However, they should be physically distributed around the organisation, so that they are not all on the same power supply or the same segment of a LAN. Each local server should be configured as a client of a Janet stratum-1 server, and as a peer to the other stratum-2s at the organisation.

Service updates

Planned infrastructure refresh starting 12 March 2020

Jisc’s NTP team will be undertaking a programme of infrastructure renewal over the coming months. This will also see the introduction of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) allowing us to access not just GPS, but also GLONASS, Galileo and BeiDou systems.

In addition, the underlying NTP infrastructure will be refreshed to meet the challenges of a modern network.

In order to complete this programme of work, we will need to migrate our current infrastructure onto the new platforms with a small planned outage to each of the 5 server NTP appliances.

Our NTP 1 appliance was the first to be refreshed and this was successfully completed on 12 March.

The schedule for the remaining upgrades will be regularly updated here (see below section Planned infrastructure refresh schedule)

Please note that the NTP service will remain up at all times.

Whilst this infrastructure work is taking place, we strongly recommend that you configure more than 1 NTP server as a failover to ensure continuity of service using the geographically distributed servers given above.

If you have any questions regarding this service refresh or require any technical assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will get back to you.

Planned infrastructure refresh schedule - The following was updated on - 09/03/2021

Due to the current COVID-19 situation, all upgrade work to the NTP appliances has been temporarily postponed. Please see the Jisc statement on COVID-19 https://www.jisc.ac.uk/about/corporate/coronavirus-statement. We understand members would prefer us not to implement any major changes at this time and have therefore implemented a change freeze to preserve essential services. As the situation changes, we will update you on this page.

There will be further periods of maintenance (1 for each of the remaining NTP appliances (ntp0.ja.net,ntp2.ja.net, ntp3.ja.net, ntp4.ja.net) with similar outages whilst the refresh work is being completed.  A schedule will be posted here when confirmed.

Planned maintenance on ntp0.ja.net and ntp2.ja.net

Please note that from time to time the National Physical Laboratory carries out scheduled maintenance on their MSF transmission equipment which will affect the Janet NTP servers ntp0.ja.net and ntp2.ja.net. Any known maintenance dates are provided below. There shouldn't be any interruptions to the service, but the servers ntp0 and ntp2 will be running at stratum-2 instead of stratum-1 during these maintenance periods.  For more information, please refer to the National Physical Laborator/ website: http://www.npl.co.uk/science-technology/time-frequency/products-and-services/time/msf-outages. The remaining Janet NTP servers should be available as normal unless other maintenance work is being carried out.