[ptpd - Help] Questions on products and licensing

Sun Apr 8 17:20:26 EDT 2012

Thanks a lot, Gertjan. I appreciate to hear from your experiments.

I'm still considering whether to go with the open PTPd or a commercial
version such as IXXAT.

At this time, I'm a bit inclining to IXXAT because of its support for
IPv6 (with a software module extension). I will check if it's possible
to modify their  code and if their commercial license takes care of the
inherent license/royalty fees for using IEEE 1588-2008 algorithm and
patents. Ease of integration, especially for the time-stamping interface
component, is a critical factor.

Daniel

From: gertjan hofman [mailto:ghofman at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 3:34 AM
To: Daniel Le
Cc: Ronciak, John; ptpd at lists.infradead.org
Subject: Re: [ptpd - Help] Questions on products and licensing

Daniel,

We have a similar issue - our ARM based DAQ boards are running a 2.6.30
& Debian Lenny and there is no point trying to upgrade - we have had to
make a fair number of kernel changes to support our board hardware.

I dont completely remember why we preferred the openptpd.  I seem to
recall that I found it actually easier to understand. The IXXAT code was
written in a more general structure perhaps but harder to follow.
Experiments showed no difference, or worse,  synchronization
convergence.  There might also have something about the way OpenPTP was
using a kernel feature to timestamp the outgoing packet using the loop
back interface (I could be quite wrong here....I believe this is
documented in the older Openptp mailing list on source forge) and IXXAT
was not.  While we were still deciding whether we could make 1588 work
for us, I already knew I had to modify the OpenPTP code and I could not
do this with the IXXAT code that we had not yet paid for.  I added a lot
of extra filtering on the Master to Slave Delay,  which was showing
non-stochastic spikes. We also added VLAN capabilities so that our
switches would route 1588 before any other traffic (this really helped).
We send packets every 250 ms rather than the official PTP v1 limit of 1
second.  I documented this is a previous e-mail to this mailing list
about 2-3 years ago.

On the other hand....IXXAT supports 1588 V2 (now - it didnt at the
time).  They were a good company to deal with, generous with lending
their code.  Presumably they solve the licencing problem for you.  These
are all worth while advantages in a corporate environment.

Cheers

Gertjan

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 10:48 AM, Daniel Le <daniel.le at exfo.com> wrote:

> I evaluated it about 3 years and decided that the open source version
had some advantages.

Would you mind to share the advantages of the ptpd open source code from
your evaluation? Are there issues with Ixxat IEEE 1588-2008 protocol
stack?  I generally go with open source code, but this time I hesitate
because ptpd does not support IPv6 and there is no indication it will
soon. Commercial product also provides more support (at a cost).

WRT kernel 3.X, my embedded platform currently uses 2.6.35.7 and a
kernel upgrade is not quick job as it involves re-testing of all
applications and infrastructure code.

Regards,

Daniel

From: ptpd-bounces at lists.infradead.org
[mailto:ptpd-bounces at lists.infradead.org] On Behalf Of Ronciak, John
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 6:05 PM
To: gertjan hofman; ptpd at lists.infradead.org
Subject: RE: [ptpd - Help] Questions on products and licensing

> Not entirely sure what you mean.  Ixxat has had a commercial version
for 5 years, see:

> http://www.ixxat.com/ieee-1588-stack-v2_en.html

> I evaluated it about 3 years and decided that the open source version
had some advantages.

Yes but I was only pointing out the Linux project stuff.  Commercial
versions have been around a long time.  The Linux one not really that
long until now in the Linux kernel.

> The kernel implementation came too late for us - I should dig into it
some more. I seem to recall there was strong 

> reluctance at Red Hat to distribute it due to the patents issues. Is
this no longer true ?

Since it is part of the kernel I'm assuming not.  I don't speak in any
way for RH.  As of yet RH has not released a kernel based on a version
that support PTP.  That will change as the next major release happen
from them.  It will be based on a kernel that supports it.

Cheers,

John

From: gertjan hofman [mailto:ghofman at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 2:48 PM
To: ptpd at lists.infradead.org
Cc: Ronciak, John
Subject: [ptpd - Help] Questions on products and licensing

John,

Not entirely sure what you mean.  Ixxat has had a commercial version for
5 years, see:

http://www.ixxat.com/ieee-1588-stack-v2_en.html

I evaluated it about 3 years and decided that the open source version
had some advantages.

Re license - yes,  use of the 1588 protocol, regardless of the
hard/software will always fall under the Lucent license - at least that
is the understanding of the lawyers of the company I work for.  Cost are
not prohibitive.

The kernel implementation came too late for us - I should dig into it
some more. I seem to recall there was strong reluctance at Red Hat to
distribute it due to the patents issues. Is this no longer true ?

Cheers

Gertjan

-- 
==================================================
Gertjan Hofman
ghofman [at] gmail.com  

604-982-3574
==================================================

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