Analysis of Time Synchronization Challenges in Digital Twins for Edge-Enabled Data Centers in Smart Cities Scenario

The rapid adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and digital twins (DTs) is revolutionizing smart cities by facilitating improved real-time monitoring, simulation, and optimization of urban infrastructures. In data centers, digital twins offer virtual representations of physical infrastructure, enabling real-time monitoring, optimization of energy consumption, cooling efficacy, and resource utilization. This integration seeks to improve energy efficiency and sustainability in smart cities. In this context, edge computing is becoming essential solutions to mitigate latency, bandwidth, and privacy issues linked to centralized cloud system. A significant challenge in utilizing digital twins for edge-enabled data centers is attaining accurate time synchronization between the digital twin and its physical equivalent. Precise synchronization is crucial for real-time state representation, facilitating efficient monitoring, control, and optimization. The distributed characteristics of edge devices, varying network conditions, and constrained computational resources present considerable synchronization challenges. Factors such as clock drift, network jitter, and protocol constraints can result in temporal inconsistencies, compromising the reliability of digital twin applications. This paper offers an extensive examination of time synchronization issues in digital twins for edge-enabled data centers within smart city contexts. The study examines essential factors affecting synchronization accuracy and reliability, identifies significant bottlenecks, and suggests strategies to alleviate their impact. The results aid in the creation of effective synchronization mechanisms, facilitating the implementation of dependable digital twin systems.