METHOD, SYSTEM AND COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR COLLECTING INFORMATION WITH IMPROVED TIME-STAMP ACCURACY

摘要

A solution for collecting information from multiple clients on a central server is proposed. Particularly, each client records the start and the stop of any software product, and then uploads the recorded information to the server periodically. For this purpose, the client retrieves the current value Ts(a) of the internal time of the server Ts at its startup; this value Ts(a) is stored onto the client as a time base TB. A monotonic counter is then used to measure a time offset Oc relative to the time base TB. Whenever a record R(i) indicative of the usage of a software product is recorded on the client, it is time-stamped with the time base TB plus the current value of the time offset Oc(i). In this way, the time stamp TR(i) of every usage record R(i) is always synchronized with the internal time of the server Ts (independently of the internal time of the client Tc).