From owner-freebsd-announce@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 21 16:26:20 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-announce@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C44D106566C for ; Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:26:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from deb@freebsdfoundation.org) Received: from aslan.scsiguy.com (www.scsiguy.com [70.89.174.89]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 28CCA8FC12 for ; Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:26:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: from Deb-Goodkins-MacBook-Pro.local (c-71-196-153-166.hsd1.co.comcast.net [71.196.153.166]) (authenticated bits=0) by aslan.scsiguy.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id oBLGQIRd086141 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Tue, 21 Dec 2010 09:26:18 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from deb@freebsdfoundation.org) Message-ID: <4D10D524.6050400@freebsdfoundation.org> Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 09:26:12 -0700 From: Deb Goodkin User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101207 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-announce@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:42:40 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: [FreeBSD-Announce] Foundation Funds last project for 2010! X-BeenThere: freebsd-announce@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Project Announcements \[moderated\]" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:26:20 -0000 Dear FreeBSD Community, The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that Julien Ridoux and Darryl Veitch at the University of Melbourne have been awarded a grant to implement support of feed-forward clock synchronization algorithms. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is widely used for synchronization over the network and the ntpd daemon is the current reference synchronization algorithm. The system clock in FreeBSD is currently designed with ntpd in mind, leading to strong feedback coupling between the kernel and the synchronization daemon. The RADclock ( http://www.cubinlab.ee.unimelb.edu.au/radclock/ ) is an example of an alternative class of synchronization algorithms based on feed-forward principles. This project will provide the core support for feed-forward algorithms, so that alternatives to ntpd can be developed and tested. The central motivation for this is the strong potential of such approaches for highly robust and accurate synchronization. Beyond this, virtualization is one of the next major challenges faced by time keeping systems. The current feedback synchronization model is complex and introduces its own dynamics, an approach that is not suited to the requirements of virtualization. Feed-forward based synchronization offers a cleaner and simpler approach, which is capable of providing accurate time keeping over live migration of virtual machines. This project will conclude in March 2011. Sincerely, The FreeBSD Foundation