- Latency/Response time is the time required to perform an action or to produce some result.
- Latency is measured in units of time - minutes, seconds, milliseconds.
- For example - 100 ms to complete a request/transaction.
- Latency comparison numbers
- Latency is important as it affects overall business.
- Amazon has observed that a 100 ms increase in latency/response time reduces sales by 1%.
- And others report that a 1-second slowdown reduces a customer satisfaction metric by 16%.
| Terminology | Description | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| 95th percentile | Response time that is slower than 95% of all requests. | In other words, if you have 100 requests, the 95th percentile response time would be the response time for the 95th slowest request. |
| 99th percentile | Response time that is slower than 99% of all requests. | Similarly, this is the response time for the 99th slowest request out of 100 requests. |