You probably already know what an NTP server is, but just to refresh your memory, it provides an accurate time source for the clock/calendar chips built into all your network devices: routers, switches, servers, even desktop systems. The NTP server gets its time from some authoritative source -- ultimately one of the atomic time standards available from various governments -- and then passes it on to end-user devices. To prevent any one NTP server from being saturated, the entire galaxy of NTP servers are organized in a hierachy, with each existing in a particular level in that hierarchy, called a Stratum, which represents its distance from the atomic standard. Stratum-0 servers are the atomic sources themselves, with Stratum-1 servers being once removed, Stratum-2 twice removed, and so on. The farther removed a server is from Stratum-0, the less accurate and reliable it is.

Most network admins get their NTP service from an NTP server on the Internet, and are lucky if they can find a usable Stratum-3 server. That makes their own network server of Stratum-4 quality, which is none too good, let me tell you. If your Internet connection goes down, your devices depending on the Internet-resident NTP server may simply revert their clocks to some ancient date and time.

Network time synchronization is important to network administrators. First, tracing events through the time-stamped logs of various devices requires those devices to agree on the time to make sense of their logs. Second, some protocols, such as SSL and VPN, are very time-dependent, and may fail if clocks get too far out of synch. Third, many applications are ill-equiped to handle a sudden blast-to-the-past and will explode spectacularly when such timequakes occur. A possibly apocrypal incident had one employee getting 60 years of back pay when the clock reset on a computer running his company's payroll.

It turns out that there is one spectacularly wonderful Stratum-0 time standard whirling constantly above our heads: the Global Positioning System. With the right equipment you can suck the Stratum-0 time right out of the air, making your local network a Stratum-1 time standard. And so far the GPS system has not crashed once (knock on wood), so you can pretty much be assured of 100% reliability. Alas, until recently, the "right equipment" cost at least $1,500, took up a whole rack space, and was designed to be painfully difficult to configure and deploy. I suspect mostly phone companies buy these things ("At the tone, the time will be...").

Enter the Slovakian company M-Tech, who sells a very nice-looking, Web-adminstered GPS NTP server the size of a compact modem. You plug Ethernet in one side, hand the supplied GPS antenna out the window, and you're a Stratum-1 NTP site! As a bonus, the thing supports SNMP traps to let you know if all the GPS satellites disappear (a grim prospect), and NMEA-standard GPS output that you can use for other things GPS, such as tracking the location of your building. Out here in California that's a useful function.

I know what you're asking. "Slovakia? Where the heck is that? Is it near Outer Mongolia? [It isn't.] Do they have FedEx? I don't want to wait six months to get this thing!." My answer is that it doesn't really matter where Slovakia is. You pay with a credit card in U.S. dollars and if they don't deliver you reverse the charge. Except by all accounts they do deliver, so it's really no different than buying a book from Amazon. Maybe even faster.

OKAY, okay, if you insist. Here's what the capital of Slovakia looks like:
[Click here to see Bratislava] I don't know if M-Tech is in Bratislava or some other corner of Slovakia, because I can't read Slovensky, but it doesn't matter, does it, because they have an English catalog page and online ordering:

http://www.mtechba.sk/gpsntp/gpsntp_selection.html

I love it. I've just made the world a little flatter.