FSMLabs Debuts ‘Lightweight’ Time-Sync Appliance

The lightweight appliance will synchronize timestamps used by local servers and applications to the same source as a company’s main GrandMaster Clock deployment, so that a firm can achieve enterprise-wide consistency across timestamps applied to data sources. The appliance is aimed at smaller firms, but will also appeal to existing clients looking to synchronize server clocks at distributed operations. “Some existing clients… want the original system in their datacenter, but maybe have offices elsewhere that they want to be locked into the same timing,” says FSMLabs chief executive Victor Yodaiken.

These clients had asked the vendor to provide a version of the appliance that would consume less power and be easy to deploy in satellite offices. Each Enterprise box is one rack unit deep with hot-hot swappable dual power supplies, which means users can replace one in the event that it fails, without interrupting the appliance or needing to take it offline. The lightweight version is also one rack unit deep, but is smaller overall, and generates less heat and noise, making it easier to set up and run in an office that may not have racks of IT resources.

The lightweight appliance will also be 40 percent cheaper than the Enterprise-level version, and the vendor is “trying to aggressively push the cost down” even further, Yodaiken says, adding that aside from latency-sensitive trading firms, the vendor is also seeing demand for the lightweight appliance from potential clients in the military, scientific and government sectors.

In addition, FSMLabs is focusing on improving the accuracy and reporting capabilities of its appliances, by implementing the latest technologies and software where available, and finding ways to more efficiently use its existing hardware components, while next year the vendor will add improved failover capabilities, including a “holdover” capability that allows systems to capture timing information from synthetic oscillators that can maintain accurate time in the event of an interruption to the appliance’s GPS signal.