In today’s interconnected and digitised world, networks are of crucial importance and support critical services and applications such as file sharing, collaboration tools, cloud services, and more. These services are essential for the smooth functioning of organisations. Even the slightest interruption or degradation can impact productivity, customer satisfaction, and ultimately, revenue generation. Additionally, unreliable, or weak networks can result in data loss, delays, or incomplete transfers, leading to data integrity issues and operational inefficiencies.
It can be challenging to accomplish a reliable network for several reasons. Network designers, network architects or engineers, and CTOs are dealing with ever more complex network architectures and troubleshooting network issues. One of the biggest challenges? Finding out if you are dealing with a timing or a network problem and troubleshooting timing issues in changed and more complex networks that often no longer require accurate and stable timing to function.
In this article, we will take a look at the most pressing issues at the cutting edge of networks and timing. What are they, and how can you prevent or resolve them? Read on and find out!
The most common Troubleshooting Network Issues
There are several common network issues that can occur. Let us take a quick look at the most common and important ones:
- Connectivity issues and slow network speed. Tracing the root of this problem can be challenging. Potential culprits include: an internet plan that is too slow, a congested provider’s network, an exceeded data cap, weak Wi-Fi signals, slow or outdated devices, or timing issues that affect applications at the edge of your network.
- DNS resolution problems. These occur when users are unable to connect to an IP address via a domain name. They are often caused by a poor network or internet connection, misconfigured DNS settings, or an outdated browser.
- An IP address conflict, which happens when two or more devices share the same IP address.
- Firewall or security software issues. These can affect performance and interfere with the timing.
- Wi-Fi signal interferences. These are often caused by channel overcrowding, physical obstructions (walls, doors, furniture), other devices and gadgets in the vicinity, or outdated technical settings.
- Hardware failures. Malfunctions within the electronic circuits or electromechanical components of a computer system are a prime example of a commonly occurring hardware problem.
Is it a Timing Issue or a Network Issue?
Modern telecom transport technologies no longer require impeccable and stable timing to work properly. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Not entirely. Whilst it is true that the fundamental networks no longer rely on timing for their own performance, many applications at the edge of these networks still do. Although the ‘legacy’ networks of the past gave us their fair share of problems, finding the roots of issues was a fairly easy and straightforward endeavour. Why? Because timing was an external import that came in separately from other network traffic. This made timing errors and issues relatively easy to spot and diagnose. An on-device red light, SNMP trap or similar tool for remote management flagged up the error and a hardware swap would usually resolve the issue.
This isn’t quite the case with modern networks in the age of ethernet, 4G and 5G. Timing is now in with the other traffic, which makes it a lot harder to identify, diagnose and quickly solve timing issues. It becomes more difficult to determine if a specific issue is the result of a timing or a network problem.
To make things even more complex, there are numerous parameters that can interfere with your timing. Something as simple as a rule change in your firewall can already affect timing and performance. The problem with timing issues is that they tend to be cumulative and exponential. If you have one clock and the device is off, a snowball effect that leads to an ever-worsening cascade of performance problems is a real danger.
In the past, most traditional telecommunication companies had their own timing specialists, but nowadays these people are becoming a rare breed. And most ethernet specialists and present-day decision makers, especially in industries other than telecommunication, don’t know much about timing because they have never had to deal with it. Lastly, we also see that the technology behind timing is gradually reaching its limits. The level of timing becomes tighter and tighter (down to the level of nanoseconds or even femtoseconds and picoseconds), whilst the equipment becomes ever smaller, and software based. Even a small built-in fan to prevent overheating can cause delays that are unacceptable for quick deciders and traders such as financial institutions or stock traders.
Real-World Problems
Since the newer time-focused solutions are less modular and highly dependent on software to deliver the functionality required, simple hardware fixes are increasingly not an option. This leads to many discussions on what a customer’s error is, and what services are causing it.
We can illustrate this by taking a look at a couple of real-world cases:
- Someone designed a network, but the timing went wrong. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the network design, except the fact that it wasn’t suited and configured properly for timing purposes. Due to timing loops, performance and timing issues became worse and worse over time.
- PTP clients were reporting errors that were not present on the GrandMaster (GM) clock (TP4100). After examining some logs/packet captures it turned out they'd left another GM powered up in the network and their clients were taking PTP from that GM, which was the source of the errors. This is an unintended consequence of using multicast where you don't tell the clients which GM to use.
- A Caribbean company sent all their equipment to England because the performance and timing were out. It transpired that they had just fitted the wrong connections.
How Chronos helps you overcome Network and Timing Issues
Chronos is one of the few internationally renowned specialists in resilient synchronisation and timing systems and has gathered extensive technical knowledge and industry experience (we are trusted as experts by customers in telecom, finance, energy, data centre, broadcast, aerospace, defence and security, enterprise/IT, emergency services, transport, and manufacturing) over a period of more than 35 years.
This allows us to help you overcome network and timing issues. A combination of services and support from Chronos and the latest generation of timing hardware and software (CentreTime, CityTime, TrustedTime, SiteTime) allows us to provide accurate time synchronisation solutions. We also possess extensive NTP and PTP expertise. We offer direct and high-quality troubleshooting assistance, both on location and remote (phone calls, email and via a dedicated management platform). Furthermore, we can replicate issues with special equipment and subsequently monitor and solve issues in our own testing environment. And last but not least, our expertise and experience also allow us to give you professional audit and compliance support.
Our technical experts provide complete solutions, from network design and solution specification to installation, commissioning, and 24/365 support, delivering the best performance for resilient synchronisation and timing applications.
More Information
Would you like to know more about the delicate balance between networks and timing? And do you want to be confident about your sync and timing for critical infrastructure? Then feel free to contact us. Give us a call at +44 (0) 1594 862200, send an email to sales@chronos.uk or fill out the contact form below or on our website.