5 Recommendations for Deploying a Time Server in Your Organization for Optimal Log and SIEM Performance

For organizations with numerous network devices, security systems, and applications, analyzing historical events from logs or SIEM systems becomes extremely difficult if all devices are not time-synchronized. Let’s explore how to properly deploy a Time Server or Time Synchronization Appliance within your organization to address these challenges.

1. Deploy a Stratum-1 Time Server for maximum accuracy To ensure accurate and reliable time across systems, it is essential to invest in a Time Server or Time Synchronization Appliance equipped with a GPS antenna that receives time signals directly from satellites. This provides Stratum-1 level accuracy, ensuring precise time referencing and compliance with legal requirements for logging and auditing events, as well as enabling accurate correlation with external systems.

2. Deploy the Time Server to minimize delay and latency across systems To ensure all devices receive highly synchronized time, the communication path between the Time Server and network devices should have minimal delay and latency. In practice, achieving low latency across all systems can be challenging. Therefore, administrators should prioritize devices and zones based on their need for precise synchronization. For example, data centers and network equipment require higher accuracy, while endpoints or printers may not.

For critical systems such as servers and network equipment, Time Server deployment may bypass firewalls to reduce latency. For client networks, routing through multiple layers or security systems such as IPS or firewalls may still be acceptable.

3. Continuously monitor Time Server performance Ensuring that the Time Server consistently operates accurately and continues to receive precise GPS signals is crucial for maintaining system stability. Configuring syslog, SNMP, and network monitoring tools specifically for the Time Server helps verify both accuracy and availability.

In highly time-sensitive environments, administrators should also regularly verify that servers, clients, and network devices remain properly synchronized.

4. Deploy redundant Time Servers when necessary For organizations that heavily depend on accurate time synchronization and cannot tolerate downtime, deploying redundant Time Servers—either within the same site or across multiple locations—is highly recommended. This reduces the risk of service disruption caused by time-related issues.

Additionally, all servers, clients, and network devices must be configured to support failover with redundant Time Servers.

5. Define security policies to protect the Time Server To prevent attacks, Time Servers should be regularly patched to address vulnerabilities. Enterprise-grade Time Servers often include built-in firewall capabilities and support authentication mechanisms such as MD5 to restrict access to authorized clients only, reducing the risk of malicious attacks.

For more information about Time Server or Time Synchronization Appliance solutions, please contact Throughwave at 02-210-0969.

About Wavify TimeNX

Wavify TimeNX is a unified time synchronization appliance that synchronizes time using GPS signals received via an integrated antenna, delivering Stratum-1 accuracy in compliance with Thailand’s Computer Crime Act. In enterprise environments, it is typically used for the following purposes:

Synchronizing system logs across firewalls, switches, and software to ensure accurate and legally compliant log correlation Aligning time across all servers and client devices to ensure consistent application performance Synchronizing machinery in production lines and laboratory environments for accurate operations Synchronizing network devices across branch offices to ensure seamless cross-site operations

Recommended Wavify TimeNX models include:

NX-500: GPS-based unified time synchronization appliance supporting up to 4,400 devices per second NX-300: GPS-based unified time synchronization appliance supporting up to 2,500 devices per second NX-200: Peer-to-peer unified time synchronization appliance for branch offices, supporting up to 1,000 devices per second via NX-500 and NX-300

Additional information: www.wavify.com