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THE AGILITY GUARANTEE AboveNet Low Latency Network Solutions

 

What is Latency, and why less is more?

Latency: The time it takes a data packet to move across a network connection.
When data is sent, there is "latent" time, when the computer that sent the data waits for confirmation that the data has been received. Latency and bandwidth are the key factors determining your true network connection speed.

When you click an online application and it takes a second or more for the screen to appear that is an example of the latency we experience every business day. This is the time needed for data to travel across a network to your pc. This travel time becomes increasingly critical when your enterprise is moving data and video at gigabits per second.

With so much content transferring so fast even a tiny part of a second’s delay could mean poor response from applications or more seriously – loss of revenue. Large financial services are using ultra-fast computers to track trading patterns inside financial data, while conducting hundreds of thousands if not millions of transaction daily, with most of them reaching end-points in less than 10 milliseconds. For example, market place trade orders must be first to reach destinations to be filled, otherwise the business goes to someone else. Talk about the race going to the swiftest.

Speaking on the importance of latency, Andy Bach, Senior Vice President, Communications, NYSE Euronext recently said, "NYSE Euronext is committed to building the best and most-advanced network for accessing our new data centers in the U.S. and the U.K.”  Bach continued, “Working with AboveNet, we will implement a highly optimized optical network offering minimal latency to and from our data centers while maintaining superior route diversity.  This will ensure that we continue to provide the lowest latency, highest-capacity access for our customers now and in the future."

Latency is simply a measurement of the delay, or absence of it, in data transmission – how quickly the data you send is received on the other end. Or, how soon the data you request appears on your screen or in your data base. The time performance – latency – of your network can make the difference between success and a missed revenue opportunity.

The Speed Of Light
This is the limitation of optical networks in that no signal can travel faster than light speed through fiber. And, the more network electronics and hardware the packet signal has to negotiate the greater the delay before your data arrives. As your critical orders are crossing network interfaces and being converted from optical to electrical and back, the delay or latency increases. It doesn’t matter that portions of the fiber network are moving data at light speed if the overall, end-to-end data delivery must slow for these conversions and interfaces.

Poorly engineered hardware is not the only concern. The distance the signal must travel and any multi-network connectivity can affect latency performance.

When your critical communications have to negotiate lengthy, multiple network connection points your voice and video transmissions can be degraded. This can produce order errors, re-transmissions and voice drop-outs, all of which diminish organizational productivity. A handful of errors or delays in order/transactions could affect your financial results for a quarter, or potentially for the year.

Benefits of a High Performance Private Network

• End-to-end optical networking eliminates conversion delays, enabling lowest latency
• Private network ownership provides dedicated network capacity and high availability
• Diverse fiber routing provides redundancy and eliminates single points of failure
• Extremely low metro-to-metro data latency
• Network ownership, end-to-end provisioning backed by rigorous SLAs

Delivering lowest latency throughput: A dedicated, end-to-end fiber network solution
Often legacy networks provide end-to-end connectivity over a mixed media, of copper and fiber-based networks, connected to various devices and interfaces. This equipment obstacle course can be provisioned by multiple vendors and carriers. The resulting connectivity can add latency delays.

The solution is simple
Provide a private, end-to-end, fiber network design that bypasses potential failure points of legacy networks. This design has been proven with the high-bandwidth solutions provided for some of the world’s most demanding customers, those with latency-sensitive applications, like stock exchanges and financial institutions. AboveNet meets the needs of these enterprises and carriers on a daily basis for highly secure, extreme low-latency connectivity.

High performance networking designed for your needs.
Our owned and operated network offers custom designed network solutions to meet your critical needs.  We offer a broad array of network services with industry-leading low latency. We are in the markets where you do business, offering you low latency, high-bandwidth connectivity to and from 15 major metros.

Whether you require low latency connectivity to the world’s trading markets or have critical data that most be precisely exchanged, AboveNet solutions can help give your business a competitive edge.