Latency is the time it takes for a packet of data to travel from source to a destination. In terms of performance optimization, it's important to optimize to reduce causes of latency and to test site performance emulating high latency to optimize for users with lousy connections.
This article explains one of the most searched queries associated with latency – “latency meaning computer”. The components affecting latency, how it can be reduced, as well as how you can check your latency will also be covered below.
Latency Meaning Computer
Latency in computing refers to the time delay between an input and the received output. It is inherent at all levels of computing, from the IO latency between the user and the computer to the network latency as data and information travel from a computer to servers around the world.
How Latency Works
Let’s look into how latency actually works and how, as a user, you’re usually impacted by it. Consider that you are buying a product through an online shop and you press the “Add to Cart” button for a product that you like.
The chain of events that occur when you press that button are:
1. You press the “Add to Cart” button.
2. The browser identifies this as an event and initiates a request to the website’s servers. The clock for latency starts now.
3. The request travels to the site’s server with all the relevant information.
4. The site’s server acknowledges the request and the first half of the latency is completed.
5. The request gets accepted or rejected and processed.
7. The site’s server replies to the request with relevant information.
8. The request reaches your browser and the product gets added to your cart. With this, the latency cycle is completed.
The time it takes for all these events to complete is known as latency.
What Is Latency In Cryptocurrencies?
In cryptocurrencies, latency can refer to two different time delays. The first is the latency in the network of a blockchain, and the second is the latency on an exchange.
Blockchain network latency is the time between submitting a transaction to a network and the first confirmation of acceptance by the network. After the first confirmation, the transaction becomes more final as more blocks are added beyond the initial confirmation. In a payments system that hopes to gain widespread adoption, low network latency is paramount. The time between payment at a cashier and the confirmation of the payment is a point of user friction if it grows too long.
The latency of an exchange is a measure of their ability to process and execute large volumes of transactions in their order books. It is common for day traders to utilize bots to automate most of their trading volume, which means the bots are placing and canceling an incredibly high volume of orders every second. An exchange that has low latency and high throughput can process these orders in a timely fashion, and thus the day trader (via the bot) can take more considerable advantages of swings in asset prices. Conversely, an exchange that has high latency will process orders with a time lag behind the evolving asset price, which results in wrongly priced orders and opportunities missed for the day trader.
What Is Latency Affected By?
There are four main components that affect network latency, including:
1. Transmission medium: The physical path between the start point and the end point. The type of medium can impact latency. For instance, old copper cable-based networks have a higher latency than modern optic fibers.
2. Propagation: The further apart two nodes are the more latency there is as latency is dependent on the distance between the two communicating nodes. Theoretically, the latency of a packet going on a round trip across the world is 133ms. In actuality, such a round trip takes longer, though latency is decreased when direct connections through network backbones are achieved.
3. Routers: The efficiency in which routers process incoming data has a direct impact on latency. Router to router hops can increase latency.
4. Storage delays: Accessing stored data can increase latency as the storage network may take time to process and return information.
How To Reduce Latency?
Latency can be reduced by addressing the aforementioned components and ensuring that they are working correctly. It can also be reduced by using dedicated networks that streamline the network path and provide direct communication between nodes.
Content Delivery Network (CDN) providers provide customers with private networks that allow them to bypass the public internet. These private networks reduce latency by providing more efficient paths for data packets to travel on.
How Can Latency Be Checked?
You can check the network latency of your internet connection with any website by passing its web address or IP address in the command prompt on a Windows or Mac. Here is an example of the command prompt on Windows:
C:\Users\username>ping www.google.com
Pinging www.google.com [172.217.19.4] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 172.217.19.4: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=52
Reply from 172.217.19.4: bytes=32 time=45ms TTL=52
Reply from 172.217.19.4: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=52
Reply from 172.217.19.4: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=52
Ping statistics for 172.217.19.4:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 43ms, Maximum = 47ms, Average = 45ms
Here you can see the result of pinging www.google.com. The statistics show that the average time it takes for a roundtrip between the given PC and Google’s network is 39ms.
Closing Thoughts
Whew, that was a lot to take in. So to recap, latency meaning computer refers to the time it takes for a data packet to travel from the sender to the receiver and back to the sender. High latency can bottleneck a network and reduce its performance but you can make your web applications less latent by using a CDN and a private network backbone to transfer data.
