Patent ID: 8150800

Claim:
A system configured to provide clock synchronization for use with a replication service in a data backup and recovery storage environment, comprising: a first source replication node of a plurality of source replication nodes (SRNs) configured to couple to one or more target storage systems of a plurality of target storage systems over a network, the plurality of SRNs configured to replicate storage requests on the one or more target storage systems, wherein a first SRN of the plurality of SRNs comprises a first write interception component, a first hardware clock component (HClock) configured to generate a timestamp, and a first clock node component (CNode) in cooperating relation to the first write interception component and the first HClock, the first CNode configured to, interact with a second CNode of a second SRN of the plurality of SRNs to elect the first CNode as a master CNode, synchronize a second HClock of the second SRN to the first clock HClock by the second SRN querying a current time from the master CNode, provide the second CNode with the timestamp from the first HClock in response to the query, and modify the second HClock according to the timestamp and an error boundary of the second HClock; and wherein at least one of the CNodes is configured to generate a time identifier (ID) data structure configured to store at least one of the timestamp and the error boundary.