Precise Time Stamping

Advanced FPGA-based Host CPU Offload

Each packet that enters an ANIC adapter is tagged with a timestamp with up to 4nS (nanosecond) time precision.

The ANIC adapter has to be disciplined from a timing source and there are five options as follows listed in order of popularity:

  1. Host OS – The host operating system acts as the time source and can in turn be disciplined by any other source such as PTP, 1PPS, NTP or the like.
  2. GPS/CDMA – ANIC adapter can be directly attached (via a front port) to a 1PPS (One Pulse Per Second) time source such as GPS or CDMA.
  3. PTP or IEEE 1588 – A PTP (Precision Time Protocol) network can be directly attached to an ANIC adapter via a front port.
  4. Another ANIC adapter – One ANIC adapter can be the time source for another by attaching them via the onboard “card-to-card bus”.
  5. Free Running – All timing is handled by the ANIC adapter onboard clock. This is the least precise mechanism but easiest to utilize.

noteAn ANIC adapter can also parse out a Gigamon or Arista generated timestamp and propagate it forward to the host application.

wdt_ID Speed 1G 10G 10G 10G 10G/40G 10G/40G 100G 100G 100G
1 Model 4Ku 20ku 40ku 40kq 80ku ATLAS-1100 Service Node ANIC-200KFlex ANIC-100Kq ANIC-200Kq
2 Port/Type 4X1G SFP 2X10G SFP+ 4X10G SFP+ 1X40G QSFP+ 4X10G SFP+ 2X40G QSFP+ 8X10G SFP+ 4x10G SFP+ 1x40G QSFP+ 2x100G QSFP28 2x40G QSFP28 1X100G QSFP28 2X100G QSFP28
3 PCIe Interface Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x8 Gen3 x16 Gen3 x16 Gen3 x16
4 Dimensions(H x L inches) 4.25 x 6.5   4.25 x 6.25 4.25 x 6.25 4.25 x 6.25 4.25 x 6.25 1.75 x12.28x14 4.25 x 6.5 4.25 x 10.5 4.25 x 10.5
5 Memory 32MB 4G 4G 4G 4G 16/32G 8G 12G 12G
6 Timestamp 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 5.7 nS 4 nS 4 nS 4 nS
7 100% Packet
Capture
8 Gigamon, AristaTimestamp
9 Packet Merging
10 Packet Parsing