Intel Corporation
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DATA PLANE CONTROL OF NETWORK TIME SYNC PROTOCOL IN MULTI-HOST SYSTEMS

Abstract:

Methods and apparatus for data plane control of network time sync protocol in multi-host systems. A network interface controller (NIC) is configured to implement a network data plane that is associated with a software-based control plane implemented in the multi-host system. The NIC includes a primary timer and secondary timers at distributed endpoints such as network ports. The NIC receives network time packets having network timestamps and employs a secondary timer to associate a local timestamp with the packets. The network and local timestamps are compared by a network intellectual property block (network IP) in the data plane datapath to adjust the primary and secondary timer(s) to match the network time. The network IP uses a 2-bit wire protocol to increment and/or decrement the primary and secondary timer(s) that enables the timers to be adjusted with a nanosecond granularity.