Accurate, consistent time across all devices matters far more than it first seems. Log correlation during troubleshooting and incident response depends on matching timestamps from firewalls, switches and servers. Kerberos authentication, used by Active Directory, fails if clocks differ by more than a few minutes (five by default). Certificates have validity dates, so a device with a badly wrong clock may reject valid certificates or accept expired ones. Scheduled jobs, backups, one-time password tokens and financial transactions all depend on time. Network+ covers three technologies: NTP for everyday synchronization, PTP for very high precision, and NTS for securing NTP.
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