Tag Archives: Meinberg

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New Trusted Source Mode feature by Meinberg

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Andreja Jarc from Meinberg has provided the following information regarding a new Trusted Source Mode feature. In the latest release of our LANTIME firmware 6.24 you can find the new feature. This additional functionality is much awaited by everyone who is looking for a method that will help to mitigate vulnerabilities of the GPS signal.

Anomalies in the GPS timing caused by unfriendly signal spoofing or transmission of incorrect data by the GPS system itself as observed on January 26th 2016 lead either to the loss of reception or even to incorrect time in a GPS synchronized timing receiver, if no additional measures are taken to mitigate the influence of these effects. Meinberg has implemented a so-called ‘trusted source’ method (TRS) – that allows connecting one or more additional time sources to a GPS receiver. The functionality of this kind of receiver with a Multi Reference Source (MRS) operation has been addressed in one of our previous posts.

The TRS Method is supported in Meinberg LANTIME Systems in combination with an external XHE Rubidium connected to the GPS receiver. The TRS enables deeper consistency checks of the received time.

Figure 1: Trusted source setup including LANTIME M3000 with GPS180 receiver and an XHE Rubidium device. In normal operation, the external Rubidium is steered by PPS coming from the GPS clock. In holdover periods, on the other hand, the Rubidium becomes a master source and steers the reference clock with its PPS.

The external Rubidium acts as a holdover buffer that is synchronized by the MRS Master as long as the master is available. If the GPS Master fails or GPS for some reason starts delivering corrupted data the TRS will detect this as an offset limit violation. Consequently, the reference selection algorithm will discard the current master and the XHE rubidium source will become the new master for synchronization.

When the GPS signal reverts to normal operation and the time difference returns below the TRS limit, the GPS becomes the master source again.

Configuration of TRS in LANTIME Systems

Let me now explain the steps how to configure the TRS mode in your LANTIME.

First of all, the GPS source should be selected as source 1 in the priority list and the “ext. OSC” (referring to XHE Rubidium) should be configured as priority 2. All the rest of priority levels should be left unconfigured. You will find these settings in the LANTIME Web GUI-> Clock->GNS Clock->Source Priority.

Figure 2: Priority list with GPS and ext. Osc. in MRS Settings.

Second, the IRSA Reference selection algorithm should be activated.

We configure a TRS limit the GPS Master source should comply with in the Precision field. In our example we configured 250ns which is the maximum allowed time deviation of the GPS receiver.

Figure 3: TRS offset limit for the GPS receiver.

Third, the TRS mode should be enabled by selecting “Use Trusted Source” for the GPS master. (LANTIME Web GUI-> Clock->GNS Clock->Features). The XHE Rubidium should be configured as “Is Trusted Source”.

Figure 4: Activation of the TRS operation mode.

Finally, the GPS source should have enabled “Time of Day Source” and “Phase Source”, which means that the GPS is a source for both Time of Day and Phase. At the XHE Rubidium only the Phase Source should be enabled, since the atomic clock alone does not deliver a time of day information.

Figure 5: Time of Day and Phase information selection.

You can monitor the TRS operation in the MRS Status. As long as the time offset between GPS and XHE does not exceed the GPS precision value the normal operation status is shown as below.

Figure 6: Status information in normal operation.

When the TRS limit is violated, the reference algorithm discards the current master and switches automatically to “ext. OSC” (i.e. XHE Rubidium) backup mode and the “TRS Limit violated” flag is shown in the status information of the GPS source.

The TRS Violation is listed also in the notification event matrics and can be activated for monitoring.

Figure 7: Selection of notification events for alarming and monitoring of the TRS operation.

Let me acknowledge at this point my colleague Andre Hartmann, the Managing Director of R&D at Meinberg for providing the technical expertise on the TRS feature.

I hope you find this post useful for your synchronization deployment. If you have any questions, write me to andreja.jarc@meinberg.de or visit our website at: www.meinbergglobal.com.

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MiFID II and what it means for financial institutions

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Achieving MiFID II Compliance with Meinberg Time Sync Solutions

This article on MiFID II compliance is courtesy of our friends at Meinberg, the world’s leading provider of time solutions. There’s also a great post from Heiko Gerstung from 2016 that covers more of the background.

iTkey is the certified partner for Meinberg in Australia and New Zealand. With MiFID II about to come into force, we can assist with compliant synchronisation and monitoring solutions for Australian financial institutions with operations in the European Union.

Introduction

On July 2nd, 2014, the “Markets in Financial Instruments Directive” (MiFID) in its revised and amended form, known as “MiFID II”, entered into force together with the Markets in Financial Instruments (MiFIR) regulation. It originally was scheduled to apply within EU Member States by January 3rd, 2017. In February 2016, the European Commission formally delayed the implementation date by 12 months, it is now scheduled to become applicable in January 2018.

On September 28, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a document called Regulatory Technical and Implementing Standards for MiFID II, which on 553 pages defines draft technical standards for implementing MiFID II (and MiFIR). Starting on page 501 of this document, the Regulatory Technical Standard 25 is defined which covers Clock Synchronisation for operators and participants/members of trading venues. This RTS requires all affected organizations to establish and maintain unprecedented levels of clock synchronisation and time-stamping accuracy in their mostly complex systems and networks.

As a leading expert in time synchronisation for computer systems and networks, Meinberg provides assistance and guidance to their customers affected by these new legislative and compliance requirements.

MiFID II Requirements for Time Synchronisation

The Regulatory Technical Standards document defines the time accuracy requirements for both market venues (exchanges) and market participants (traders) in RTS 25.

For both roles, the standard defines several “classes” or levels of time stamping accuracy (“maximum divergence to UTC”) and the timestamping resolution (“granularity”) that is required under MiFID II.

The most common requirements are either 1 millisecond or 100 microseconds of accuracy.

Compliance with MiFID II regulatory requirements

Time Accuracy

Obviously, time accuracy is only one small part of the MiFID II compliance requirements. However, it is a technical challenge to achieve the required accuracy in a distributed computer system like a stock exchange IT ecosystem or a trading infrastructure. Compliance with RTS 25 cannot be established by simply deploying highly accurate clocks like Meinberg’s IMS series, LANTIME M Series NTP appliances or SyncFire High Performance NTP servers.

The achievable accuracy is determined by three main factors:

  1. the quality and performance of the clock
  2. the quality and stability of the network
  3. the stability and performance of the hosts that require time synchronisation

Meinberg products are market leading in terms of clock accuracy, stability and reliability and therefore will cover the first point in a MiFID II compliant infrastructure. Depending on which accuracy class your organization is assigned to, you can use either Meinberg GNSS synchronized NTP appliances or Meinberg GNSS synchronized PTP Grandmaster clocks.

Our products can, in addition to GNSS satellite signals, use a large variety of other time sources as their main reference. The guidelines to RTS 25 issued by ESMA clearly state that GNSS is a valid and accepted source of UTC traceable time in the context of MiFID II. Using other time sources for your clocks is of course allowed, but you must make sure that these sources are traceable to UTC. One example would be NPLtime, which is available in London, UK and is operated by NPL.

Monitoring

The guidelines issued by ESMA clarify that you must put up reasonable effort to ensure that your servers and other hosts that require to be MiFID II compliant are operating within the accuracy class your organization falls into. The exact wording here is “relevant and proportionate monitoring”.

Meinberg’s NetSync Monitor solution offers the market’s best monitoring solution because it uses standard PTP message formats and a technology called “reverse PTP” to actually measure the accuracy of a PTP slave clock. It does not rely on self-reported accuracy like all other monitoring solutions and can also monitor NTP clients as well, using the standard NTP protocol to “read back” the time from your hosts.

As NetSync Monitor is the best in class monitoring solution available today, we believe it clearly fulfills the requirement for “relevant and proportionate monitoring” as mentioned in the guideline document.

Meinberg Compliance Statement

We therefore hereby state that our clock synchronization solutions, including our GNSS synchronized NTP servers and PTP Grandmaster Clocks, as well as our monitoring solution NetSync Monitor will be an important step on your way to gain MiFID II compliance.

References

The ESMA documents referenced in this document are listed below and should be consulted in any case as they are forming the official documentation body that is relevant for the MiFID II clock synchronization compliance.

Directive 2014/65/EU (MiFID II)

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014L0065&from=EN

Amendments to Directive 2014/65/EU (and consolidated version)

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/markets-financial-instruments-mifid-ii-directive-2014-65-eu/amending-and-supplementary-acts/amendments_en

Regulation (EU) No 600/2014 (MiFIR)

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014R0600&from=EN

Amendments to Regulation EU) No 600/2014 (and consolidated version)

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/markets-financial-instruments-mifir-regulation-eu-no-600-2014/amending-and-supplementary-acts/amendments_en

Regulatory technical and implementing standards – Annex I

https://www.esma.europa.eu/sites/default/files/library/2015/11/2015-esma-1464_annex_i_-_draft_rts_and_its_on_mifid_ii_and_mifir.pdf

Guidelines

https://www.esma.europa.eu/sites/default/files/library/2016-1452_guidelines_mifid_ii_transaction_reporting.pdf

Final Report on Guidelines

https://www.esma.europa.eu/sites/default/files/library/2016-1451_final_report_on_guidelines_mifid_ii_transaction_reporting.pdf

 

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iTkey @ Comms Connect Melbourne 2017

Comms Connect exhibition in Melbourne

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Comms Connect is the number one event for critical communications and iTkey will be there in Melbourne on Wed 22nd and Thu 23rd November 2017.

Come see us Stand 22, just near the conference sessions in the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre.

Comms Connect Melbourne 2017

We’ll be showing off a range of communication and management solutions

Meinberg are the world leader in time & frequency solutions for GPS based NTP, PTP and reference timing. We have an M1000 from the Meinberg Intelligent Modular Sync (IMS) platform on display.

Bodet have a range of time display systems including NTP based LED, LCD and analog clocks. Bodet have solutions for education, medical, critical comms and industrial applications.

Worldcast Manager is network management suite for SNMP based monitoring and control. For a limited time, Worldcast are offering free drivers and integration to make migration to a cloud based management platform as easy as possible.

eye.solar is our brand new mobile surveillance solution for securing construction sites, remote facilities and unpowered assets. Combining solar autonomy with cellular time lapse, live video and security alarm – Eye.Solar looks after your site so you don’t have to worry.

MobileViewpoint provides live video links where no-one else can. Bonded cellular modems provide reliable data aggregation in  the toughest of conditions, while the lightweight machined aluminium cases are suitable for UAV and vehicle mounting.

FileCatalyst powers enterprise file transfer around the world. Whether you are moving video, high-resolution medical images or massive data files, FileCatalyst offers flexible, fast and secure transfers. Using accelerated protocols, FileCatalyst out performs almost any other solution available on the market, with the enterprise management features you expect.

We also offer a range of solutions for video conferencing, audio visual, room automation and networking.

eye.solar, MobileViewpoint & Meinberg

Meet the team at Critical Comms

Paul Dengate, Craig Wilson and Richard Everitt from iTkey will be on the stand.

Registration for the show is free but you need to visit the Comms Connect expo page if you aren’t already attending the seminars.

Bodet Analogue Clock product imageMeinberg antennas product image