Latency in a network refers to the delay that occurs between when a user takes an action on a network or web application and when they receive a response. It is an important factor in network performance and can be caused by a variety of factors and components within the network itself. Latency is typically measured in milliseconds, and while it is possible to design a network where latency is reduced to a relatively few milliseconds, it is impossible to have a zero-latency network because of how data travels.
Network latency is the amount of time it takes for a data packet to go from one place to another. It is typically measured in multiples or fractions of a second and can differ slightly depending on the location of the specific pair of communicating endpoints. Engineers usually report both the maximum and average delay, and they divide the delay into several parts, including processing delay, queuing delay, transmission delay, and propagation delay.
Latency is an important factor in network performance because high network latencies can dramatically increase webpage load times, interrupt video and audio streams, and render an application unusable. Businesses prefer low latency and faster network communication for greater productivity and more efficient business operations. Some types of applications, such as fluid dynamics and other high-performance computing use cases, require low network latency to keep up with their computation demands.
