If you have noticed any of the following issues, they may be related to the NTP offset on the hosts that are reporting metrics through the Agent:

• Incorrect alert triggers
• Metric delays
• Gaps in graphs of metrics

To check the NTP offset for a host, run the Agent status command, using the instructions appropriate for your OS, and look for the Clocks section:

  Clocks
  ======
    NTP offset: -0.0036 s
    System UTC time: 2015-02-12 22:10:49.524660

Any significant offset can have undesired effects. To prevent NTP issues, leverage Datadog’s monitor for NTP offset to alert you when there is drift on a host thanks to the NTP Integration. Alternatively, use Datadog’s Check Summary page and inspect the check ntp.in_sync to see the list of hosts that have NTP issues.

Note: Outgoing UDP traffic over the port 123 should be allowed so the Agent can confirm that the local server time is reasonably accurate according to the Datadog NTP servers.

Further Reading