Introducing PTP Track Hound V2 – The new leader of the pack

Time and frequency synchronisation experts, Meinberg, have announced the latest update to its popular IEEE1588 debugging and monitoring software.

Available now, PTP Track Hound V2 aims to deliver advanced monitoring features that will allow the software to be used as a central monitoring hub for timing-critical infrastructures. Since the first release of PTP Track Hound in 2017, it has been installed on thousands of computers and has become the tool of choice for troubleshooting PTP implementations.

PTP Track Hound V2 is the perfect upgrade for existing users, or as a replacement for generic capturing tools like Wireshark.

Trackhound V2 Key Features:

The new Meinberg PTP Track Hound v2 provides network-wide PTP monitoring with a modern, feature-rich web interface, allowing users to operate independently of the background capture service and the ability to forward captured PTP traffic from one device to a central hub for analysis.

PTP Track Hound captures PTPv1, PTPv2 and PTPv2.1 network traffic on the configured adapters, using the main memory (RAM) for temporary storage. Detailed statistics on the counted PTP packets captured per second and in total, both for all PTP packets and for individual packet types, provide a general idea at a glance of the load structure of PTP traffic in your network.

Decoding of PTP-specific message data

PTP Track Hound automatically decodes PTP-specific message data and the most commonly used TLVs. It uses this data for internal analysis and evaluation and displays it in a user friendly format, providing a detailed insight via the web interface into the data in the packets.

Generation of PTP Management Messages and event notifications

With a professional license, PTP Track Hound can be configured to periodically send out PTP Management Messages to request common PTP datasets from instances within the monitored network(s). This allows the software to draw reliable conclusions about the synchronisation status of the network, devices, and instances in a way that would not be possible by simply passively capturing passing traffic.

PTP Track Hound v2 can also be configured to send out event notifications as SNMP traps, e-mails (sent via SMTP), or syslog messages when predefined or highly customisable event conditions are triggered. This allows the software to be used as the central monitoring hub for timing-critical infrastructure.

Continuous multi-site monitoring

Detect PTP cable devices and displays in a tree view. The Track Hound devices tile offers an overview of all PTP devices in the network. Slaves, Ordinary Clocks and Boundary Clocks are automatically assigned to their Masters so that the synchronisation hierarchy can be discovered at the first glance. Detected devices can be given individual names, management addresses and images for easier identification. In addition to this practical feature, a detailed overview of the number of PTP messages that have been sent by a device is shown, message rates are calculated and used delay mechanisms are determined. Besides, configuration issues like diverse announce message rates or delay, mechanisms on different devices are detected and standard violating devices like illegal Masters are identified.

Available with multiple single-user license levels

In addition to being available for Windows, Linux and macOS, PTP Track Hound v2 is available with three different single-user license levels: Free, Basic, and Professional. Decoding of PTP message data, PTP management messages, and continuous multi-site monitoring are all features of the professional license.

For a full breakdown of license levels and features,
speak to a member of our time synchronisation team on 01522 596 570.

Alternatively, our team of time synchronisation experts is available to offer technical insight and support for getting the most out of Meinberg's latest IEEE1588 debugging and monitoring software.

01522 596 570 | [email protected]