International Business Machines Corporation

R Udiger Reischuk

Hovey Ramond Strong, Jr

Danny Dolev

A network node, such as a computer or processing system, is provided, for use within a network, the node including program code for synchronizing a local time maintained at the node with a reference time. Bursts of synchronization messages containing reference time stamps are transmitted over the network, or over a communication link, according to a predetermined protocol. The node receives and time stamps the messages. Thus, times according to a first time scale and a second time scale are obtained. The protocol defines temporal relationships between certain ones of the times. In accordance with the protocol, the node determines a difference between a first time according to one of the time scales and a time related to second and third times according to the other time scale. The node then updates its local time based on the difference. This synchronization method provides a well-defined upper bound of synchronization error, and allows the node to synchronize its internal time based only on information contained in the received messages and the internally generated local time stamp marks. No 'round trip' or handshaking messages are necessary to define the needed temporal relationships between the times according to the first and second scales. Thus, it is not necessary that the reference time source know the identity of the node which is synchronizing itself. The node also maintains a global precision value, which estimates its time synchronization error, by resetting the value when the node is synchronized, and updating the value as the node operates. Responsive to the global precision exceeding various thresholds, the node requests resynchronization or sends synchronization messages based on its internal time.

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Munich, Georgia

R Udiger Reischuk