Measurement techniques to assess the time synchronization in Distributed Systems

In the contest of the standard IEEE 1588, protocol for the synchronization of the node clock in Distributed System (DS), is of fundamental importance to assess the effectiveness of the synchronization. On the basis of this consideration, the aspect taken into account in the paper concerns the different measurement techniques pointed out in literature to evaluate the time delay occurring in (i) the DS among the synchronized node clocks, (ii) the telecommunication network respect to the reference clock, and (iii) the hardware and software path involved by the arrival of the command at the synchronized node and the execution of the relative action. The intent is to furnish a critical analysis of the measurement techniques, and to highlight the advantages and the limitation in the practical evaluation of the time delay.