Skyline Advisor NTP - Not consistent - Incorrect finding

[MattHumphreys]

So we have two vcenter servers in different physical datacenters, they have network access to each other and are linked together so you can login to one and see the details of the other.

We have a single skyline collector setup in one of the vcenter servers which is collecting information from both.

We have finding ID

• vSphere-NTPConfInconsistent-VVD#SDDCVIESXi04

This is not correct as the NTP for the two sites is different obviously, we have DC1 going to NTP in DC1 and DC2 going to NTP in DC2, the collector is in DC1 and complains that all the hosts in DC2 dont have consistent NTP as the primary it believes is the NTP in DC1.

Now my thinking is this is because we dont have a collector in each site and its creating a false setup, do we need to create a collector in each site to ensure we dont get strange results like this or should this not be happening in the first place?

[AjayChananaVMwa]

Hi MattHumphreys​

As per the VVD design the NTP server setting should be same across the environment.

Reference: - https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Validated-Design/5.0/vmware-validated-design-50-sddc-planning-prep...

Also, we do recommend that to have separate collector for geographical disperse vCenter.

I hope that helps!

[MattHumphreys]

Hi Ajay,

I understand that if they are in the same environment they should be consistent but our architecture is like this

Location A                                                       Location B

Site 1 VCSA --------------Firewall---------------- Site 2 VCSA

Skyline----------------------Firewall---------------- Site 2

Now obviously Site 2 has its own services and replica of active directory, DNS, NTP, skyline only has a collector in site 1 and reaches site 2 via the firewall to do collections.

If we added a second collector in site 2 would this remove our NTP mis-match finding or would it still be there because you want all sites to have a single time source rather than using one that is local to their site?

We are planning on adding additional sites in the future so it is important to us to get this right, we set up each site so that it is interconnected but independent of each other so that if a site becomes isolated from another site it can continue to operate short term while the problem is resolved so each one has a AD, DNS and NTP source locally.

[MattHumphreys]

Hi Ajay,

Did you get a chance to look at my last reply, still trying to figure this out, as we have several different sites and a third to be added shortly do we need collectors at each site to eliminate this NTP mis match issue or is the only answer to use the same NTP server across several environments?

[AjayChananaVMwa]

Hi @MattHumphreys

The skyline rule checks if all the ESXi is having the same value for the NTP server or not.

As a solution, you can enter multiple NTP server as a value. However, you have to keep the order of NTP server same.

Host will automatically pick the nearby NTP Server.