Network Time Protocol (NTP) polling interval of iLO and OA?

[chuckk281]

Dan had a question on time synchronization:

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 Customer looking to put a c3000 and some blades on a ship with a

 128Kbps Satellite connection.

 Wondering how often NTP does a time synch from the OA and the iLOs to

 the configured NTP server?

 No plans to put a NTP Server onboard.  But I am also researching if

 the on-ship switch or router could be a local NTP Server for the HP

 gear.

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From Rick:

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I cannot speak to the OA and iLO, but on an otherwise "regular" Linux system running the ntpd, the client will start-out at 64 seconds, and then as it feels more comfortable with the time, slowly increase the polling interval out to 1024 seconds.  If it starts to think it doesn't have as good a handle on the time, it will start to poll more frequently again.

Does the ship not have GPS?  If it has GPS, one might look into whether the GPS gear they have already installed can serve time.  I suspect that would be far preferable to accessing four or more NTP servers over what I guess is a geosynchronous satellite link and its rather high latency?  (Or is this satellite link via lower-orbit satellites and so doesn't have the huge latencies?)

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Comments or suggestions?