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A comment on Clockwork raises $21M to keep server clocks in sync. Parent comment

Re:Clockwork raises $21M to keep server clocks in sync by pclmulqdq on Saturday March 19, 2022 @12:43AM (#30731112)
They can't do better than a microsecond or so without hardware timestsmps. There aren't a lot of applications that seem to need anything between milliseconds and nanoseconds. MiFID II did open a nice market in finance, but many of those companies use PTP anyway.

I considered starting a competitor in 2018 when I first saw this company, but I don't have the same connections to customers that these guys do.

My conclusion was that PTP precision with software timestamps would be a good company, but not something between. I hope they can prove me wrong!

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Re:Clockwork raises $21M to keep server clocks in sync by dan-robertson on Saturday March 19, 2022 @07:20AM (#30732911)
My understanding is that PTP is neither necessary nor sufficient. The main advantage of it is that some hardware will only support adding hardware timestamps to PTP messages (ie you want to use the time packets left/arrived at your network card rather than the time you processed them in the kernel/userspace). But I think the specialness of PTP can lead to dealing with a lot of bugs from bad implementations.
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