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A survey on high-precision time synchronization techniques for optical datacenter networks and a zero-overhead microsecond-accuracy solution

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Abstract

A datacenter, which is a highly distributed multiprocessing system, needs to keep accurate track of time across a large number of machines. Precise time synchronization has become a critical component due to stringent requirements of several time critical applications such as real-time big data analytics, high-performance computing, and financial trading. Our study starts with a survey on the most relevant time synchronization techniques for datacenter networks. Then, we propose a zero-overhead microsecond-accuracy solution to synchronize a packet-switched optical network for datacenters. To achieve the desired time accuracy, we consider precision time protocol to synchronize the server clocks with a central controller clock. Zero-overhead is maintained by using data traffic to carry the time messages instead of a separate control channel. Through simulation, we show that microsecond level of time accuracy can be achieved. We also discuss the dependency of the accuracy on different traffic loads, traffic distributions, and packet lengths.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Institute for Information & communications Technology Promotion (IITP) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) [B0117-16-1008, Development of Data Center Optical Networking Core Technologies for Photonic Frame based Packet Switching].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California Davis, Davis, USA

    Tanjila Ahmed, Sabidur Rahman, Massimo Tornatore & Biswanath Mukherjee

  2. Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Massimo Tornatore

  3. Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea

    Kwangjoon Kim

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  1. Tanjila Ahmed
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  2. Sabidur Rahman
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  3. Massimo Tornatore
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  4. Kwangjoon Kim
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  5. Biswanath Mukherjee
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Correspondence to Tanjila Ahmed.

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Ahmed, T., Rahman, S., Tornatore, M. et al. A survey on high-precision time synchronization techniques for optical datacenter networks and a zero-overhead microsecond-accuracy solution. Photon Netw Commun 36, 56–67 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11107-018-0773-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11107-018-0773-9

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