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Re:Introducing Cloud Spanner, a Global Database Service by detaro on Wednesday February 15, 2017 @10:21AM (#13652575)
Yes, they clearly say that they use atomic clocks in addition, but that's commercially available as well. Atomic clock for frequency stability short- to mid-term, GPS to keep it synced to global time. E.g. in many cases, mobile-phone base stations contain just such a setup, and the data-center versions should fit in a few HE.
Re:Introducing Cloud Spanner, a Global Database Service by stuckagain on Wednesday February 15, 2017 @12:06PM (#13653454)
And then all you need is a team of 12 full time SREs to manage it.
Re:Introducing Cloud Spanner, a Global Database Service by detaro on Thursday February 16, 2017 @01:21AM (#13658098)
A system build on top of it? Possibly, but thats the trade-off if you don't want to pay for/be lock-in to somebody else running it. For just the timing stuff: not really. Of course it adds complexity, but these things are established and should be quite stable.