There are several problems that occur as a result of clock rate differences and several solutions, some being more acceptable than others in certain contexts.
The make command uses the clock of the machine it runs on to determine which source files need to be recompiled.
If the sources reside on a separate file server and the two machines have unsynchronized clocks, the make program might not produce the correct results.
It has been shown to be scalable over mesh networks that include indirectly-linked non-adjacent nodes, and is compatible with IEEE 802.11 and similar standards.
[8] Using GPS (or other satellite navigation systems) for synchronization requires a receiver connected to an antenna with unobstructed view of the sky.
Atomic frequency standards and GPS receivers designed for precision timing are often equipped with an IRIG output.
Well tested over the years, it is generally regarded as the state of the art in distributed time synchronization protocols for unreliable networks.
It can reduce synchronization offsets to times of the order of a few milliseconds over the public Internet, and to sub-millisecond levels over local area networks.
In this scheme, an initiator broadcasts a reference message to urge the receivers to adjust their clocks.
It is specifically tailored to be used in IEEE 802.11 wireless networks configured in infrastructure mode (i.e., coordinated by an access point).
Researchers from Stanford and Google introduced Huygens, a probe-based, end-to-end clock synchronization algorithm.