If you have multiple switches, try and determine if the latency is only between that switch. If you’re dealing with a large network and inconsistent slowness, it pays to take your time and be detailed. These devices are sometimes unable to understand important instructions through Spanning Tree Protocol, causing a storm of traffic and out of control latency.Įliminate network paths one by one. In a network environment, this unmanaged hardware can cause problems by not properly communicating with managed devices on the network. Switches and network equipment that doesn’t allow you to configure them are often referred to as dumb or unmanaged devices. This helps ensure that phone calls have priority and experience less latency when the network is under a heavier load.Īvoid using unmanaged or “dumb” switches. For example, home networks may want to lower the QoS priority of gaming traffic over the network to increase bandwidth for video chats.īusinesses often use QoS to prioritize VoIP traffic over other network packets. This setting allows you to prioritize traffic based on a number of criteria such as source, type, protocol, or IP address. Almost all modern network devices allow you to configure a custom QoS or Quality of Service configuration. There are however a few techniques you can use to dramatically improve the performance of your network that very well may fix your latency issues in the process.Įnable QoS on your router or firewall. Since network latency is such a broad problem, there is no clear cut way to solve your latency issues in a few simple steps. Depending on if you have DDoS protection, this flood of illegitimate network traffic could overwhelm your firewall, server, or applications and cause severe network latency. In more rare circumstances network latency can be the result of a sporadic DDoS attack against your network. You can think of these loops as an echo chamber where devices continuously repeat traffic across a network causing congestion, dropped packets, and severe latency. Local area network issues known as packet storms or broadcast storms can cause a flurry of traffic on your LAN that makes accessing internal servers and services slow and unreliable.īroadcast storms could be caused by a miscommunication of a device resulting in what is known as a switching loop. When there is a legitimate latency problem, understanding where it’s coming from can be a real pain without at least some basic troubleshooting tools. For example, slowness in a live steam video may have nothing to do with your network, but everything to do with the broadcaster’s connection. Some perceived slowness on your network may be beyond your control. Network latency is not an easy issue to diagnose and must be looked at thoroughly to find the exact cause. Luckily, there are a few tricks we can use to help prioritize specific traffic types, as well as eliminate unneeded traffic congestion altogether. While 100ms might be an okay latency for a file transfer, that same speed could cause a noticeable drop in VoIP quality or live video streaming. However, not all latency is created equal. Network latency is simply the speed of the traffic across your network, usually measured in milliseconds and abbreviated as “ms.” While you can never truly eliminate latency all together, you can make changes to your network environment to help reduce this time and improve your network performance. One of the simplest forms of latency testing you can perform. MultiPing Similar to PingPlotter it allows for altering and more advanced features like dynamic DNS tracking.PingPlotter Provides basic latency monitoring and testing with simple graphing features.ManageEngine Netflow Analyzer Includes reporting and billing features that tie into SLA monitoring features.Paessler PRTG Ideal for MSPs and larger businesses that need to quickly eliminate latency issues and prioritize network uptime in their environment.NirSoft NetworkLatencyView Tool A lightweight and barebones tool that provides a good starting point for troubleshooting.Pingdom (FREE TRIAL) Third-party SaaS that monitors your outward-facing websites and applications.
SolarWinds VoIP & Network Quality Manager (FREE TRIAL) Ideal for sysadmins who are concerned with latency across their VoIP systems.SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (FREE TRIAL) Monitors latency, network metrics, and both virtual and physical hardware.Built for network engineers, by network engineers. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (FREE TRIAL) Great second runner-up to PRTG.Here is our list of the best network latency testing tools: While there are dozens of programs to choose from, we’ve found the top network latency testing tools you can use to track down and eliminate slowness on your network. If you’re looking for a tool to track down network latency, you’re in the right place.