ANDOVER, Massachusetts: According to Napatech, the world's largest vendor of intelligent adapters for network monitoring and analysis, the growth in 10 GbE port deployments and introduction of 40 and 100 GbE is driving the need to rethink requirements for precision time stamping and time synchronization.
"The issue is simple", stated Henrik Brill Jensen, CEO, Napatech. "As data is transmitted at faster speeds, there is less time to react and more data to handle per second. It's a double-whammy that network monitoringand analysis applications cannot handle using standard network interface cards. These applications rely on intelligent adapters to take care of packet capture and time-stamping at high speeds. But, to be useful, these network adapters must ensure that each and every Ethernet frame is uniquely time-stamped, otherwise the analysis is worthless."
At 10 Gbps, an Ethernet frame can be sent every 67 nanoseconds. At 40 Gbps, the time between Ethernet frames shrinks to 17 nanoseconds and at 100 Gbps it is only 6.7 nanoseconds. This means less time to accurately time stamp. An accurate time stamp is important in determining the sequence in which frames are received. Without this basic information, the analysis is compromised.
"There are many solutions available on the market for time-stamping and time synchronization, which claim that microsecond precision is "good enough", but it's clear that we need to rethink this perception in the light of 10G, 40G and 100G", added Jensen. "Not only do we need to start talking about nanoseconds, but we also need to start talking about sub-nanoseconds.. "
There are a number of technology choices available for time synchronization, such as NTP, GPS, CDMA and IEEE1588v2/PTP. There are also a number of very specific technology terms that are easily confused, such as the difference between accuracy, resolution and precision in relation to time-stamping and time synchronization.
"Time-stamping and time synchronization have long been the domain of specialists", continued Jensen. "However, now it is important that appliance developers also understand these concepts and can see through some of the confusion in the market in inaccurate use of these terms as well as understanding what is possible to achieve with various technologies available."
To this end, Napatech is providing collateral explaining key concepts and technology choices for time-stamping and time synchronization as well as providing new products to ensure that Napatech can continue to provide OEM appliance vendors with the best time-stamping accuracy, precision and resolution available. This includes the latest generation of Napatech network adapters announced earlier this year supporting on-board IEEE1588v2 as well as the NTTSE Napatech Time Sync Endpoint for retrofitting of IEEE1588v2 to existing installations. Napatech already provides the time stamping precision and accuracy to support 40 Gbps solutions today.