The package has been incorporated in the Unix kernels for Digital Alpha, Sun Solaris and SunOS, Hewlett Packard HP-UX, Digital Ultrix, FreeBSD and Linux. This project is based on a PhD dissertation studying algorithms to reliably synchronize clocks in a network including truechimers, which always present correct time, and falsetickers, which present incorrect or inconsistent time. The algorithms are based on Byzantine agreement principles in which clocks are compared in multiple rounds and falsetickers revealed by voting procedures. The laboratory is used for ongoing research projects in internetworking architectures, protocols and applications development. It is equipped with a wide variety of workstations, personal computers, routers and measurement equipment and specially provisioned for precision time synchronization and network performance measurements.
Nodes are crossbar switches capable of connecting any input to one or more outputs.
Packets are buffered only at the edges of the network and launched only when a collision-free path to the destination is available. Paths are dynamically determined using a self-configured, distributed scheduling algorithm.