[CentOS] System on time

Hi,

To get my system on time, I usually issue these two commands:

# ntpdate de.pool.ntp.org
# hwclock -w

And when I want this to be done on startup, I put the two lines in 
rc.local.

I wonder if this is an orthodox way to do things. Or is there something 
more appropriate?

Niki Kovacs