Self-healing PTP topology with automatic failover and path redundancy.
Millisecond
Failover time
N+1
Grandmaster redundancy
Standards
IEEE 1588 compatible
Zero-touch
Operation
Traditional PTP assumes a single grandmaster and a tree topology. The moment the grandmaster fails, or a switch reboots, or a fibre is cut, your tree breaks — and every clock downstream starts to drift. PTP² Mesh turns timing into a resilient mesh: multiple grandmasters, multiple paths, automatic failover in milliseconds, and continuous sync through any single-point failure. Built on standard IEEE 1588 — no proprietary protocols, no vendor lock-in.
What it does
Run two or more grandmasters in active-active. PTP² Mesh uses BMCA-aware logic to switch slaves to the best available master within milliseconds of a failure.
Diverse-path routing so a single switch outage or fibre cut never isolates a clock. Slaves can maintain sync through any single-point network failure.
Failures are detected from continuous heartbeat plus quality metrics — faster than BMCA alone, and without losing sub-microsecond precision during the switch.
Every TimeBeat hardware product supports PTP² Mesh out of the box — and it interoperates with third-party IEEE 1588 devices. No proprietary extensions.
Every path, every master and every slave in the mesh is visualised live. Watch failovers happen. Understand exactly why each slave chose the master it did.
Add a new grandmaster or rewire the network — PTP² Mesh rediscovers topology and reconverges automatically. No config file edits, no downtime.
How it works
Step 1
Install two or more PTP grandmasters in the same domain — different sites, different power sources, different upstream GNSS antennas for diversity.
Step 2
PTP² Mesh runs on TimeBeat hardware and software. It extends standard BMCA with continuous quality tracking and sub-second failover.
Step 3
Every slave evaluates every reachable master every few milliseconds. When the best master changes, the switch is near-instant — no drift penalty.
Where it lives
01
Three grandmasters in a 1RU tray, diverse-path routing across the cage, sub-ms failover. No trade ever gets a stale timestamp.
02
A primary and secondary grandmaster, both serving the same ST 2110 domain. A grandmaster reboot is invisible to the production team.
03
Regional POPs with redundant grandmasters, serving fronthaul without depending on a single upstream GNSS feed or backhaul link.
04
Multiple grandmasters with multiple GNSS antennas and holdover oscillators — ride out a jamming event on the sources that are still clean.
Hardware pairs
The capabilities of PTP² Mesh pair naturally with these products. Deploy together for the fullest experience.
Standards & compatibility
Also in the platform
Book a demo
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Further reading
Pillar guide
What a grandmaster actually does, how to choose one, and the three things that separate a grandmaster you can trust from one that quietly drifts.
Cluster
Choosing the right oscillator class — the drift numbers that matter and the deployment scenarios where each is correct.
Interactive tool
Model the regulatory and operational cost of a GNSS disruption for your industry and oscillator class.
Library
Guides, blogs and case studies for teams evaluating or deploying this solution.
How PTP² Mesh turns a fleet of Timebeat Agents into a self-discovering, self-healing time distribution network. mDNS and DHT peer discovery, seat-based capacity, active-active operation and millisecond failover — for when you need redundancy without the rigidity of classical BMCA hierarchies.
A virtual grandmaster clock is an IP endpoint that looks like a single PTP grandmaster to downstream clients but is backed by multiple physical Timebeat Agents — redundancy, capacity and failover at the topology level, with a single client-facing configuration.
What jitter attenuation actually does inside a PTP timing fabric, why raw timestamps are unreliable, and how TimeBeat's signal-processing engine delivers sub-nanosecond residual noise from noisy real-world inputs. Written by TimeBeat's engineering team.
Why a single-grandmaster deployment is a DORA Article 11 problem, what A/B/C redundancy looks like in a single rack unit, and how the Open Time Appliance Shelf turns three independent Rubidium Black+ grandmasters — with independent GNSS antennas — into the default finance-venue topology for 2026 and beyond.
A speculative question, not a product pitch: imagine if every machine could hand anyone independently verifiable proof of what its clock was doing at any moment in history. Would it matter? Who would benefit, what might it cost us, and would the world actually be better for it? An exploration of the idea of cryptographic UTC attestation.
Core principles, threat models and deployment patterns for resilient precision time.
