NTP Server - Deploy vCenter 7.0

[virtualhelp]

Good afternoon

I am about to deploy a vCenter, but the client does not have an NTP server, in the implementations that I have participated in, there is always an NTP server and when deploying the vCenter I always choose the option to Synchronize with the NTP server.

Since there is no NTP server available, you could safely select Synchronize time with ESXi Host?, which is the other option available to deploy vCenter. Is this a good practice?

Or what other option can you recommend?

[mbufkin]

Take a look at this Article from William Lam. https://williamlam.com/2021/10/can-you-really-deploy-the-vcenter-server-appliance-vcsa-without-dns-a... 

[mlnelson]

As the other poster stated you can configure the VCSA to sync with the underlying ESXi host. 

What you want to think about is the key is the in the vSphere environment that the time is consistent. In other words if you cannot get it accurate because they do not have an NTP server (that hopefully then sync with a higher strata to be correct) then at least point all the components to the same source. 

But also remember that essentially any Windows or Linux box can be an NTP server - if they are insistent they don't want one the ESXi host sync likely the best you can do. 

[Tibmeister]

Just use public NTP, such as pool.ntp.org, that works just fine.

[Ajay1988]

You can use ESXi to Synchronize time if the time is consistent across all hosts. This can be used until u get a NTP server. 

[mbufkin]

You could spin up a Linux NTP server.