Forum Discussion
Equinix Precision Time vs antenna GPS appliance for enterprise customers?
Why is Equinix Precision Time service a better choice for Enterprise customers than the antenna-based GPS appliance?
Antennas can get dislodged or accidentally disconnected, which results in the entire loss of time synchronization. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence. And GPS (GNSS) signals can be compromised intentionally or unintentionally by jamming and spoofing, which results in no time or incorrect time. This is another big problem. The U.S. presidential mandate released in February 2020 addresses this problem by asking the users of GPS services to mitigate these risks.
Equinix Precision Time service mitigates these risks with dual redundant timing architecture so that the loss of the antenna or the signal doesn't impact the service. In addition, Precision Time also uses atomic clocks (Rubidium oscillators) in its infrastructure to provide holdover for 24 hours, maintaining 1 microsecond accuracy . Lastly, starting in March 2022, Precision Time has implemented anti-jamming and spoofing technology in all our timing infrastructure. This will eliminate the GPS jamming and spoofing risks – unlike an antenna-based solution.
Also, the Precision Time service is offered securely through a private IP network. We provide network isolation with an end-to-end network path isolation by extending the Layer 2 domain all the way to the customer environment through Private IP addressing (RFC 1918) using the Equinix Fabric port, which is a secure interconnection. In addition, the timing service is authenticated and secure, completely eliminating threats such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) and NTP amplification through spoofed addresses, which are common problems for NTP consumers.
Antennas can get dislodged or accidentally disconnected, which results in the entire loss of time synchronization. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence. And GPS (GNSS) signals can be compromised intentionally or unintentionally by jamming and spoofing, which results in no time or incorrect time. This is another big problem. The U.S. presidential mandate released in February 2020 addresses this problem by asking the users of GPS services to mitigate these risks.
Equinix Precision Time service mitigates these risks with dual redundant timing architecture so that the loss of the antenna or the signal doesn't impact the service. In addition, Precision Time also uses atomic clocks (Rubidium oscillators) in its infrastructure to provide holdover for 24 hours, maintaining 1 microsecond accuracy . Lastly, starting in March 2022, Precision Time has implemented anti-jamming and spoofing technology in all our timing infrastructure. This will eliminate the GPS jamming and spoofing risks – unlike an antenna-based solution.
Also, the Precision Time service is offered securely through a private IP network. We provide network isolation with an end-to-end network path isolation by extending the Layer 2 domain all the way to the customer environment through Private IP addressing (RFC 1918) using the Equinix Fabric port, which is a secure interconnection. In addition, the timing service is authenticated and secure, completely eliminating threats such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) and NTP amplification through spoofed addresses, which are common problems for NTP consumers.
