bittide: Control Time, Not Flows
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866917947387150336 |
|---|---|
| author | Bastiaan, Martijn Baaij, Christiaan Izzard, Martin Klein, Felix Lall, Sanjay Spalink, Tammo |
| author_facet | Bastiaan, Martijn Baaij, Christiaan Izzard, Martin Klein, Felix Lall, Sanjay Spalink, Tammo |
| contents | This paper presents the first hardware implementation of bittide, a decentralized clock synchronization mechanism for achieving logical synchrony in distributed systems. We detail the design and implementation of an 8-node bittide network using off-the-shelf FPGA boards and adjustable clock sources. Through experiments with various network topologies, including fully connected, hourglass, and cube, we demonstrate the effectiveness of bittide in aligning node frequencies and bounding buffer excursions. We collect and analyze frequency, buffer occupancy, and logical latency data, validating the hardware's performance against theoretical predictions and simulations. Our results show that bittide achieves tight frequency alignment, robustly handles varying physical latencies, and establishes a consistent notion of logical time across the network, enabling predictable distributed computation at scale with zero in-band overhead. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_05033 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | bittide: Control Time, Not Flows Bastiaan, Martijn Baaij, Christiaan Izzard, Martin Klein, Felix Lall, Sanjay Spalink, Tammo Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing This paper presents the first hardware implementation of bittide, a decentralized clock synchronization mechanism for achieving logical synchrony in distributed systems. We detail the design and implementation of an 8-node bittide network using off-the-shelf FPGA boards and adjustable clock sources. Through experiments with various network topologies, including fully connected, hourglass, and cube, we demonstrate the effectiveness of bittide in aligning node frequencies and bounding buffer excursions. We collect and analyze frequency, buffer occupancy, and logical latency data, validating the hardware's performance against theoretical predictions and simulations. Our results show that bittide achieves tight frequency alignment, robustly handles varying physical latencies, and establishes a consistent notion of logical time across the network, enabling predictable distributed computation at scale with zero in-band overhead. |
| title | bittide: Control Time, Not Flows |
| topic | Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.05033 |