Time Appliances Project

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Welcome

Welcome to the OCP Time Appliances Project wiki.
This Project is open to the public and we welcome all those who would like to be involved.
Time is a key element to get the highest efficiency in a distributed system. The performance of a distributed system depends on the synchronization of its elements. Several industries such as telecom, mobile, power, industrial, professional audio and video and many more have embraced the need for highly accurate and more importantly reliable distribution and synchronization of time and frequency across packet networks. Although the use case scenario for each of the industries is different, they all share one common thing and that is, time synchronization. Since there is a diverse need for time synchronization across different industries, driven from different use cases and applications, managing the needs of this industry chain becomes a challenge.

Time Appliances Project (TAP) aims to provide a platform to bring together, discuss, standardize and share technologies and solutions across industries with the datacenter applications and datacenter network infrastructure as the main interest. The project aims to bring together the community of datacenter operators, application developers, and equipment and semiconductor companies together to enable datacenter time-sensitive applications such as consistency in distributed systems, edge computing, AR/VR and IoT. These applications will greatly benefit from high accuracy, reliable, and scalable distribution and synchronization of time.

IEEE 1588 Precision Timing Protocol (PTP) and other synchronization methods have been adopted by various industries to maximize the efficiency of various distributed system use cases. Each use case scenario comes with a set of requirements and configurations. These configurations are collected as a ‘PTP profile’. Time appliances project aims to support the development of a PTP profile for datacenter applications and datacenter network infrastructure. The profile will cover time-sensitive applications over OCP-compliant and PTP-aware networking infrastructure such as network switches, network clocks, network interface cards, timing modules & connectors, etc. Additionally, the profile will address various requirements for high accuracy and reliable distribution and synchronization of time, such as expected performance, networking, software API, data models, deployment and telemetry. The project also aims at openness and interoperability through the use of open-source PTP software implementations for timing appliances.

Datacenter applications are the primary target of time appliances project. In addition, the project extends to related topics on time synchronization in academia, research and other industries. The time appliances project brings together the community and will be highly collaborative through technical meetings and collaboration with other OCP Projects including the Networking, Storage, Server, and Telco Projects.

Disclaimer: Please do not submit any confidential information to the Project Community. All presentation materials, proposals, meeting minutes and/or supporting documents are published by OCP and are open to the public in accordance to OCP's Bylaws and IP Policy. This can be found on the OCP OCP Policies page. If you have any questions please contact OCP.

Mission Statement

1. Create specifications and references for Data Center Timing appliances, applications and networking infrastructure
2. Promote openness in Timing Appliances and interfaces through open-source implementations

Project Leadership

- Lead: Ahmad Byagowi, Ph.D. (OCP TAP / META)
- Incubation Committee: Elad Wind (OCP / NVIDIA)
- Communication: [1] (TimeBeat.app)

Workstreams

Project Objective Lead Mailing List Status
#1 Open Time Server Development of an open time server for DC and Edge systems Oleg Obleukhov &
Dotan Levi
Submitted
#2 Data Center PTP Profile Development of a PTP Profile tailored for data center applications Michel Ouellette Submitted
#3 Precision Time APIs Time APIs to disseminate the time error (error bound) and bring accurate time to the user space Georgi Chalakov OCP-TAP-APIs Work in progress
#4 Oscillators Classification and measuring of oscillators Gary Giust Submitted
#5 PTP Servos Design and Implement Advanced PTP Servos Alon Regev Getting Started
#6 Instrumentation and Measurement Open source instrumentation and measurement/testing tools for PTP Anand Ram &
Julian St. James
Work in progress

Get Involved

- TAP Mailing List
- OCP Projects Calendar

Documents

- Charter
- TAP GitHub
- TAP LinkedIn
- TAP Facebook
- Google Drive Document Repository


Worstream Name Format Version Date
#1 Open Time Server Reference Architecture v1 July 28, 2021
Time Card Spec and design package v1 July 28, 2021
TAP Software Software July 28, 2021
#2 Data Center PTP Profile Spec v1 August 31, 2021

Regular Project Calls

- Wednesdays at 11am PST, starting on July 15th, 2020. Repeats every 2 weeks following that

Join the meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone:

https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/565185493                       

Dial in:

United States (Toll Free): +1 877 309 2073                                        
United States:             +1 571 317-3129                                        
Access Code:                565-185-493

Upcoming Calls

Date Topics Speakers
#56 November-2, 2022 Jamil Abo-Shaeer, Ph.D.
#56 October-19, 2022 The Current offerings of TCXOs, OCXOs and Rubidium Standards Kory Stone
#57 October-5, 2022 Dan Brown
#56 September-21, 2022 Resilient Time for the Future Leon Lobo
#55 September-7, 2022 White Rabbit for Datacenters Benoit Rat
#54 August-24, 2022 Time Transfer Across the Network: One Hop at a Time Thomas Kernen

Recordings from Past Calls

Date Topics Speakers Slides
#53 August-10, 2022 Graham: Synchronizing Clocks by Leveraging Local Clock Properties Ali Najafi, Ph.D. Slides
#52 July-27, 2022 PTP Automation without Validation is just making mistakes faster Ariel Hendel Slides
#51 July-13, 2022 Window of Uncertainty Ahmad Byagowi, Ph.D. Slides
#50 June-29, 2022 GNSS Time References Christian Voit Slides
#49 June-15, 2022 Time Sync in Time Aware Networks Dhiman Chowdhury Slides
#48 June-1, 2022 Advanced TimeCard and SyncModule for datacenter synchronization Nir Laufer Slides
#47 May-18, 2022 GNSS Power over Fiber System Larry Conway Slides
#46 May-4, 2022 Optical Timekeeping Efforts at NIST Jeff Sherman, Ph.D. Slides
#45 Apr-20, 2022 Precision Time Applications Dan Biederman Slides
#44 Apr-06, 2022 Digitized Clocking Technology, Achieving Time Sync Inside and Across a Distributed a Systems Petre Minciunescu, Ph.D. Slides
#43 Mar-23, 2022 Opening the FPGA code of the Time Card Sven Meier & Thomas Schaub Slides
#42 Mar-09, 2022 Measuring and Monitoring Options for Time Sync Infrastructures Heiko Gerstung Slides
#41 Feb-23, 2022 A Continuous UTC; May We Get Rid of Leap Seconds? Patrizia Tavella, Ph.D. Slides
#40 Feb-9, 2022 Getting Precision Time Synchronization to End Users Julian St. James Slides
#39 Jan-26, 2022 Using LEO Satellites for Time Synchronization Tyler Reid, Ph.D. Slides
#38 Jan-12, 2022 Antenna Challenges for GNSS Receivers Daniel Suster Slides
#37 Dec-15, 2021 PCIe PTM: Timing in the Last Inch Christopher Hall Slides
#36 Dec-1, 2021 Application of Physical Layer Synchronization/Syntonization in a Data Center Environment Med Belhadj, Ph.D. Slides
#35 Nov-17, 2021 Oscillator Workstream Update Gary Guist, Ph.D. Slides
#34 Nov-3, 2021 Time Service for the Virtual Entity Dotan Levi
#33 Oct-20, 2021 Squared: A P2P Overlay Network for Setting up a Scalable PTP clock Synchronization Mesh Lasse Johnsen Slides
#32 Oct-6, 2021 Validating PTP follower clock accuracy Alon Regev Slides
#31 Sep-22, 2021 Transparent Clock and its Applications Amit Oren Slides
#30 Sep-8, 2021 Miniaturized Rubidium Oscillator With The Lowest SWAP Based on Double Resonance Christian S. Ph.D., Stavros M. Ph.D., Jean-Arnold C Slides
#29 Aug-25, 2021 Fearless Global Transactions using Clock Synchronization in CockroachDB Nathan VanBenschoten Slides
#28 Aug-11, 2021 White Rabbit High Accuracy Timing Francisco Girela Lopez, Ph.D. Slides
#27 Jul-28, 2021 Sundial: Fault-tolerant Clock Synchronization for Datacenters Gautam Kumar & Yuliang Li, Ph.D. Slides
#26 Jul-14, 2021 Holdover Challenges in NIC Based Boundary Clocks Eyal Cohen Slides
#25 Jun-30, 2021 GNSS Anti-Jamming and Spoof Mitigation Benoit Krummenacker Slides
#24 Jun-16, 2021 Introduction to IEEE1588-2019 Doug Arnold, Ph.D. Slides
#23 Jun-2, 2021 Introduction to MAC and CSACs Robert Lutwak, Ph.D. Slides
#22 May-19, 2021 Open Synchronization implementations on Linux/k8s Clusters Timo Jokiaho & Pasi Vaananen Slides
#21 May-5, 2021 White Rabbit: An Accurate Time and Frequency Transfer over Ethernet Maciej Lipinski, Ph.D. Slides
#20 Apr-21, 2021 Time Scale Ensembles in Uncertain Environments Marc A. Weiss, Ph.D. Slides
#19 Apr-7, 2021 Clock and Oscillator Statistics and Characterization Techniques Slides
#18 Mar-24, 2021 Introduction to Project Corundum for Time services Alex Forencich, Ph.D. Slides
#17 Mar-10, 2021 Oscillators Classification, Workstream #4 goals and kickoff Gary Giust, Ph.D. Slides
#16 Feb-24, 2021 GNSS Timing Samuli Pietila
#15 Feb-10, 2021 Centralized GNSS Monitoring and Assurance Nir Laufer Slides
#14 Jan-27, 2021 Huygens and its Applications Balaji Prabhakar, Ph.D.
#13 Jan-13, 2021 TAP 2020 Recap, 2021 Plans Ahmad Byagowi, Ph.D. Slides
#12 Dec-16, 2020 Chip Scaled Atomic Clocks John Kitching, Ph.D. Slides
#11 Dec-2, 2020 Data Center PTP Profile, Workstream #2 proposal Michel Ouellette
#10 Nov-18, 2020 Computer Timekeeping and Synchronization Kevin Stanton, Ph.D. Slides
#09 Nov-4, 2020 Time Sync in TSNs (History of TSN, IEEE 802.1AS Overview) Hesham ElBakoury Slides
#08 Oct-21, 2020 Starter's guide to ptp4l Maciej Machnikowski Slides
#07 Oct-7, 2020 Timing card implementation Ahmad Byagowi, Ph.D.
#06 Sep-23, 2020 Practical Use Cases of Synchronized Clocks Georgi Chalakov
#05 Sep-9, 2020 Data Center PTP Profile, Workstream #2 goals and draft spec Michel Ouellette
#04 Aug-26, 2020 Open Grandmaster (Open Time Server), Workstream #1 goals and draft spec Oleg Obleukhov
#03 Aug-12, 2020 TAP Vision as well as the impact of precision oscillator noise on PTP time error Dotan Levi
#02 Jul-29, 2020 Detailed Project Proposal and Discussion Michel Ouellette
#01 Jul-15, 2020 Proposal to launch OCP-TAP Incubation Project Ahmad Byagowi, Ph.D. Slides

Presentations & Events

- TAP Vision | Slides
- TAP Presentation | Slides
- 2022 OCP Tech Talks | TAP Track
- 2021 OCP Global Summit | TAP Track
- 2021 GTC | Time Synchronization in Distributed Data Centers | Direct Video | Webpage | Slides
- 2020 OCP Tech Week | TAP Track
- Impact of Oscillator Noise on PTP Time Error by SiTime | Slides Part 1 | Slides Part 2

IC Presentations

- September 2nd 2021 IC Presentation (Contribution of TAP DC Profile)
- August 5th, 2021 IC Presentation (Contribution of TAP Time Card and Open Time Server)

TAP Media References

- "It's About Time (PTP on the Raspberry Pi)" video from Jeff Geerling Youtube Channel explains the effort on getting PTP on the Raspberry Pi
- "Why is this PCIe Card RADIOACTIVE?" video from Linus Tech Tips Youtube Channel highlighting the TAP Time Card
- "The most accurate Raspberry Pi clock IN THE WORLD! Can it do PTP?" video from Jeff Geerling Youtube Channel highlighting the TAP Time Card
- "Put An Atomic Clock in Your PC - Open Source Time Card" video from Gary Explains Youtube Channel explains the TAP Time Card
- "Facebook shares its Time Card atomic clock tech to speed internet services" article from C|Net
- "Supercharges Precision Timing for Facebook’s Next-Generation Time Keeping" developer blog from NVIDIA

References & External Links

- Spanner, TrueTime & The CAP Theorem by Eric Brewer, Google
- Sundial: Fault-tolerant Clock Synchronization for Datacenters by Google Inc. and Harvard University
- Practical Uses of Synchronized Clocks in Distributed Systems by Barbara Liskov
- Stanford Paper
- On Time Synchronization Issues in Time-Sensitive Networks with Regulators and Nonideal Clocks
- Accurate Network Clock Synchronization at Scale
- Exploiting a Natural Network Effect for Scalable, Fine-grained Clock Synchronization
- SIMON: A Simple and Scalable Method for Sensing, Inference and Measurement in Data Center Networks
- New Guidelines for Inclusiveness