An NTP server provides clock information to NTP or SNTP clients. You can configure an NTP server as an NTP client to receive clock information from more reliable external NTP servers or a local clock. You can also build a hierarchical time distribution topology by using TCP/IP. The switch can work as both an NTP client and server at the same time to build a hierarchical clock distribution tree. This hierarchical structure eliminates the need for a centralized clock server and provides a highly available clock tree with minimal network load and overhead.