Synchronized Counter Sampling via Global Clock
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In computing systems spanning networks, correlating performance counters from different devices is challenging due to differing time periods of sampling, leading to loss or suppression of fleeting events in traditional analysis methods.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system for synchronized sampling of counters based on a global clock, where computing devices adjust their local clocks to coincide with a determined global clock, allowing for simultaneous sampling and analysis of performance counters across the system.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If performance counters are sampled periodically from different computing devices, then system performance analysis can be conducted, but the samples represent behavior from different time periods causing correlation difficulty and loss of fleeting events
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by having each computing device adjust its local clock to coincide with a determined global clock before sampling occurs. This pre-synchronization ensures that when counters are sampled, all devices are operating from a common time reference, allowing accurate correlation of performance data across the system and capturing fleeting events that occur at specific moments.
Solution Approach 2:
A global clock serves as an intermediary time reference that mediates between the local clocks of multiple computing devices. This intermediary clock provides a common reference point that enables synchronized sampling across the distributed system, resolving the time correlation problem and allowing precise measurement of performance counters from different devices at the same moment.
2Reliability
If counters are tracked over many samples over a relatively large period, then errors associated with skewed start and sampling times are reduced, but fleeting events are entirely lost or suppressed in the data
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary clock synchronization before the sampling period begins. By having all computing devices adjust their local clocks to coincide with the global clock in advance, the system achieves both high reliability through consistent time reference and the ability to capture fleeting events during the sampling period, eliminating the need to extend the sampling duration to compensate for time skew errors.
3Ease of operation
If local clocks of computing devices are used for sampling, then each device can independently record performance data, but the clocks drift apart causing difficulty in correlating data from different devices
Solution Approach 1:
The global clock acts as an intermediary time reference that all computing devices use to synchronize their local clocks. Each device independently adjusts its local clock to coincide with the global clock, maintaining independence in sampling operations while ensuring time stability across the system. This intermediary reference prevents clock drift divergence and enables accurate correlation of performance data from different devices.
Data Source
AI summary
Technologies for synchronized sampling of counters include a computing device to determine a global clock to which the computing device and a plurality of other computing devices are to be synchronized. The computing device receives a request to sample a counter of the computing device from an administration server and records a state of the counter based on the global clock in response to receiving the request.