Clock Synchronization

[All Actors]
1. Synchronise every system, service, container and device with a trusted, authenticated time source (e.g., NTP, the cloud-provider time service, etc.).

2. Configure at least one fallback time source and generate alerts when drift or sync failure exceeds the defined threshold.

3. Continuously monitor time-sync health; log and raise incidents for repeated drift, spoofing attempts or source unreachability.

4. Record and review time-sync settings in configuration management; verify them at least annually or after architecture changes.

5. Enforce consistent timestamp zones and formats across all logs to support correlation, forensics and auditability.

1. Inquiring with Control Owners

1.1 Conduct interviews with personnel responsible for managing time synchronization across cloud infrastructure and AI processing resources to understand their implementation of reliable time sources for compute resource management, customer workload tracking, and infrastructure monitoring. Verify their understanding of time synchronization requirements for multi-tenant environments, GPU/TPU clusters, and procedures for maintaining accurate timestamps across distributed cloud infrastructure.

2. Inspecting Records and Documents

2.1 Confirm cloud infrastructure systems handling compute resources and customer workloads use a centralized time source.

2.2 Verify implementation of Network Time Protocol (NTP) or equivalent time synchronization protocols across cloud infrastructure, hypervisors, and AI processing clusters.

2.3 Check synchronization logs to validate accurate timestamping across compute resource allocation, customer workload execution, and infrastructure monitoring activities.

2.4 Assess whether unsynchronized cloud infrastructure systems trigger alerts or errors that could affect customer workload scheduling or resource billing accuracy.

2.5 Verify clock drift thresholds are defined and monitored for cloud infrastructure components, GPU/TPU clusters, and customer tenant environments.

2.6 Confirm the accuracy of timestamps in cloud infrastructure logs critical for customer billing, resource utilization tracking, and security investigations.

2.7 Validate incident response records for infrastructure issues reference consistent timestamps across customer environments and infrastructure components.

2.8 Examine documentation of reliable time source configuration for cloud infrastructure and backup time synchronization mechanisms across data centers.

2.9 Review time synchronization policies covering cloud infrastructure, customer tenant isolation, and AI processing resource management systems.

2.10 Validate that time source reliability is monitored for cloud infrastructure and backup time sources are available to maintain service availability across multiple regions.

2.11 Confirm use of centralized, authenticated NTP servers across the cloud infrastructure.

2.12 Verify tenant isolation does not interfere with consistent time sync in multi-tenant setups.

2.13 Ensure that logs generated from different services share a common time reference.

2.14 Validate redundancy and fault-tolerance in time source configurations.

2.15 Check monitoring systems for alerting when time synchronization fails.

2.16 Review logs of past sync failures and documented remediation steps.

2.17 Confirm compliance with regulatory standards requiring timestamp precision.