Low Latency Servers

Imagine you are watching a live sport like a World Cup in your living room. You noticed your neighbors are also watching the same live activity. However, any time one of the teams scores a goal, you hear your neighbors screaming with joy for about 8 - 12 seconds before you see the action on your screen. In this case, seeing the action a few seconds later than your neighbors is caused by latency. Latency is an essential concept in VoIP applications, primarily livestreaming. In live event streaming, the latency should be as low as possible to create an excellent user experience.

What are Low Latency Servers?

Fundamentally, latency is the delay between a sending request and its response time in a network. In real-time communication, low-latency servers take frames of videos and encode them into segments before delivering them to clients. In live video streaming, for example, latency refers to the time a device's camera records a video and the time end users see the captured frame. Low latency is useful for live streaming, online gaming, live sports, and anything that requires many people watching simultaneously, like the Oscars. A low latency streaming has a delay of about 2 - 8 seconds. When the delay is about 1 - 2 seconds, it is called ultra-low latency.

How do Low Latency Servers Work?

Generally, low latency servers use high-performance servers and software technologies to achieve a minimal latency between a request and response time. It uses a Global Edge Network of servers closer to users to prioritize speed, low latency, scalability, and security. The proximity of the high-performance servers and users helps to achieve low latency solutions. These use a network of servers to process users' requests from other systems and send responses back to users. The servers have several hardware components, such as switches, routers, and wireless transmitters. When a user makes a request, it introduces a delay. Similarly, there is a delay when the servers process and transmit the response back to the user.

Benefits of Low Latency Servers

Before diving into the benefits of low-latency servers, it is essential to understand what causes latency in general. Fundamentally, latency can result from many things.

• Application's scalability: An application similar to Zoom can scale from supporting a small number of users to supporting unlimited meeting participants simultaneously. As the number of users increases, the network load also increases, causing a high latency in communication. A high latency in this context can result in choppy audio communication, lags, and echoes in participants' voices.
• Proximity of servers to users: The geographical distance communication data must travel between servers and end users plays a significant role in creating a better communication experience. The more extended data needs to travel from data centers to users, the higher the latency it introduces.

Almost all communication services must have low latency to provide better services to users with near real-time expectations. The following are the benefits of low latency servers.

• Reduced latency: It minimizes VoIP applications' audio and video data transmission delays. 
• Having low-latency conversations in VoIP calls helps to minimize sound echoes and lags.

Low Latency Servers Use Cases

Low-latency servers are essential for real-time communications and any network traffic service, such as audio/video calling, online gaming, and online marketplace for selling and shopping.

• Video conferencing: Interactive voice and video meeting applications like Google Meet and Zoom require low-latency servers to produce seamless communication experiences. Without low-latency servers, there will be delays in call participants' spoken words and gestures in video calls.  
• Online gaming applications: In multi-party gaming, for example, low-latency servers make players' interactions feel natural and real-time.
• Live selling/shopping: Live selling/shopping involves streaming a live video to sell. Many participants can watch the live activity streaming to shop for items.

Low Latency Server Technologies

Several cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, use low-latency servers to offer users optimized data storage and transmission services. Many ways exist to achieve a low latency, depending on the applications or services. 

• Programmable Network Platform (PNP): PNP switches allow developers to manage network problems and lower latency. 
• Network Interface Cards (NIC): NIC helps developers support ultra-low application/service latency.
• Global Edge Storage: It consists of global cloud and edge data storage centers to prioritize high-speed networking and achieve low latency.

Frequently Asked Questions