The Accuracy of the Clock Synchronization Achieved by TEMPO in Berkeley UNIX 4.3BSD

We discuss the upper and lower bounds on the accuracy of the time synchronization achieved by the algorithm implemented in TEMPO, the distributed service that synchronizes the clocks of Berkeley UNIX® 4.3BSD systems. We show that the accuracy is a function of the network transmission latency, and depends linearly upon the drift rate of the clocks and the interval between synchronizations. Comparison with other clock synchronization algorithms reveals that TEMPO may achieve better synchronization accuracy at a lower cost. © 1989 IEEE