Time and Date Configuration
The settings described in this section will vary slightly for Xen virtual appliance users. Time is synchronized with the host hardware, so the only modifiable setting in this case is the timezone.
It is useful to ensure that the clocks on your Virtual Traffic Manager and your back-end nodes are synchronized with each other, so that when you compare log files from each machine, you can determine how events that occurred on each system are related.
If the times are not in sync with each other, it is harder to relate events to each other, such as whether an error logged by the Virtual Traffic Manager corresponds to an error recorded by a back-end server.
To manage the time settings on the local Virtual Traffic Manager instance, use the System > Time page in the Admin UI.
Unlike most other settings in the Admin UI, any settings that you configure on this page only apply to the local Virtual Traffic Manager whose Admin UI you are accessing. If you want to inspect or configure the time settings for a different Virtual Traffic Manager machine in your cluster, you should use the Admin UI for that machine.
Setting the Time Manually
Use the “Basic Settings” section to view the current system time, date, and timezone, and to set the settings manually if required.
Using an NTP Server
If you configure all your Virtual Traffic Manager instances and your back-end servers to use the same NTP server, this ensures that their clocks are set accurately and are closely synchronized with each other.
You can use publicly accessible NTP servers, but due to network latency or outages, these might not be sufficiently reliable. Ivanti recommends you run a local NTP service and synchronize all of your local systems to that server. Your local NTP server could itself synchronize from an NTP server managed by your ISP, or a public NTP server.
If for some reason, the time on your Virtual Traffic Manager virtual appliance or cloud instance differs from the correct time by a significant amount, for example, 30 minutes, NTP does not adjust for such a large difference. To correct the time difference in this case, click System > Time and then click Sync Time Now.
Synchronizing Time from the Virtual Traffic Manager
Because it typically spans multiple networks, a Virtual Traffic Manager instance can be a suitable, consistent local time source for a variety of networked devices. The Virtual Traffic Manager runs a local NTP server that is accessible on all interfaces, so you may wish to configure your other servers to synchronize time from there.