Dive Brief:
- Network-monitoring company Cedexis found IBM’s SoftLayer cloud had the lowest latency of the five providers, and the lowest latency in both the Northeast and the Southwest, according to a recent Network World report.
- The company examined cloud latency—the time it takes for a cloud service to respond to a user's request—from IBM, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Rackspace in four regions of the country during a 48-hour period in May.
- AWS touted the lowest latency in the Northwest, while Microsoft had the lowest latency in the Southeast.
Dive Insight:
Though IBM performed the best, experts say latency is just one factor companies should examine when shopping for a cloud provider. Additionally, several factors can affect latency, including where a user connects and to which data center, as well as the network provider.
In fact, the measurements could change by the minute, said Pete Mastin of Cedexis, so the study does not indicate that IBM’s cloud is king. "There’s no one provider that’s the best," said Mastin.
Overall, when it comes to latency, the closer a business can get end users to the cloud they are using, the better. "If you’re a provider, a gaming company, or any enterprise that wants to launch a service in the cloud, then know where your customer base is, that will help direct you to which cloud to use," said Mastin.
