Tasks and aims
Section Q.42 provides the IT services which are necessary within the scope of PTB's main tasks. Furthermore, it provides consultation services to national and international partners in the field of IP-based time dissemination.
The section's tasks encompass the supply of central storage resources, virtualization platforms and infrastructure servers. It is responsible for the data backup of the IT infrastructure at the Braunschweig site. The section supplies central databases, operates PTB's groupware system and realizes the central file services. It realizes and operates PTB's public time servers, which are used nationally as well as internationally, and supplies various time services for national partners. It provides consultation both at the national and international levels with regard to issues of time dissemination in package-oriented networks and is involved in international standardization committees concerned with time dissemination.
Section Q.42 is responsible for supplying PTB's central server farm and storage infrastructure.
Overview of our tasks in keywords
Some of our main tasks:
- Managing the server and storage infrastructure
- Ensuring the backup of the IT infrastructure,
- Supporting PTB's divisions in solving complex IT problems of physical research, and
- Operating the central NTP time servers:
Time synchronization of computers using the "Network Time Protocol" (NTP)
Time synchronization technical advice - Cooperating with IETF's NTP working group and providing advice to the Network Time Foundation's (NTF) committee