The ability to establish the precise time when frames have been captured, is key to many applications. To achieve this, all Napatech Network Adapters are capable of providing a high-precision time stamp for every frame captured.
Time-stamping can be performed at the start of the frame or at the end of the frame. The precision of the time-stamping allows detailed packet jitter analysis for improving VoIP and streaming media applications.
Furthermore, all Napatech Intelligent Network Adapters come with on-board time synchronization connectors, that enable them to receive a direct time signal input from an external time source, and/or share a time synchronization signal between them. In this way, multiple adapters in the same host or in different hosts will operate in lockstep in a large synchronous installation.
The following features give the user various ways of synchronizing Napatech Network Adapter time to the system environment:
Furthermore, all Napatech Intelligent Network Adapters come with on-board time synchronization connectors, that enable them to receive a direct time signal input from an external time source, and/or share a time synchronization signal between them. In this way, multiple adapters in the same host or in different hosts will operate in lockstep in a large synchronous installation.
The following features give the user various ways of synchronizing Napatech Network Adapter time to the system environment:
- Multiple Time Stamp Formats: Napatech Intelligent Network Adapters have 6 different time stamp formats, in order to accommodate different application requirements and different operating systems.
- GPS Time Synchronization: For precise time synchronization between sites (e.g. for latency measurements), support for time signal synchronization via GPS satellite is provided on the Napatech NT Family Network Adapters.
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Host OS Time Synchronization: All Napatech Intelligent Network Adapters can synchronize their clocks to the time of the host OS, and maintain the time synchronization continuously through dynamic drift adjustment.
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Inter-adapter Time Synchronization: Direct time synchronization from one adapter to another using either the external or the internal time synchronization connectors. Napatech adapters can also be connected in a daisy chain to relay the time synchronization signal from one adapter to the next.
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CDMA Time Synchronization: The Napatech adapter can be synchronized to an EndRun Pręcis Cf CDMA receiver or to a Symmetricon synchronization server.
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IEEE1588/PTP Time Synchronization: The Napatech Adapter can be synchronized to an Oregano SYN1588 PCIe NIC or to a Symmetricon synchronization server.
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PPS Synchronization: The adapter time stamp clock rate can be synchronized relative to any external PPS (Pulse Per Second) time source (TTL levels).