Synchronizing time across nodes

Cassandra is sensitive to time stamps in synchronizing operations across nodes. The time on machines where Cassandra nodes are installed must be kept in tight synchronization with all nodes that communicate with or are referenced by Cassandra. This includes Sterling B2B Integrator nodes, Global Mailbox nodes, and ZooKeeper nodes. It is important to sync time across all node machines to the same NTP servers.

A pool of two dedicated NTP servers that are synchronized with higher stratum NTP servers is required. The organizational Cassandra nodes are all configured to use this NTP pool. This is a minimal acceptable configuration for maintaining time synchronization across Global Mailbox.

There are other valid NTP configurations that might provide higher levels of synchronization accuracy but at potentially greater expense. These methodologies are well documented on the web.

You must set up an NTP server pool as part of your installation. The servers in this pool must be physical machines because virtual machines tend to have issues with clock accuracy in NTP applications.