Why Do I Need Cloud Connect If the Network Latency Is the Same as on the Internet?

Network Performance Measuring Metrics

• Packet loss rate: the proportion of packets lost during network transmission

  This metric measures the network's packet forwarding capabilities. The difference between the number of packets from the sender and the number of packets to the receiver is the number of packets lost during network transmission. The percentage of the packets that are lost is the packet loss rate.

• Jitter: fluctuation in the latency of the packets flowing through the network

  Physical devices, such routers, that forward data packets on the network have buffers. When an amount of data that exceeds the transmission capacity of the cable is transmitted, physical devices will buffer excess packets. Packets that are not buffered or buffered for a short time arrive faster than those buffered for longer. This variation is called network jitter.

• Latency: the average round-trip time for transmitting packets between two network nodes

  For a store-and-forward device, the delay starts when the last bit of the last data frame enters the device and ends when the first bit of the data frame appears on the outbound interface. The time difference is the delay of the storage and forwarding device.

  Generally, there are the following types of delay:

  • Propagation delay: the time taken to transmit a packet in the transmission medium. Propagation delay is directly proportional to the physical distance between the two ends and the packet size. The longer the physical distance and the larger the packet, the longer the transmission delay.
  • Device delay: the time taken by a physical device, such as a router, to forward a data packet. The device delay is related to the forwarding performance of the switching device.
  • Packet conversion delay: the time taken for encoding and decoding data packets at both ends.
  • Jitter buffer delay: Generally, with IP communications for a voice service, a buffer is configured to eliminate the network jitter to prevent the voice quality from being discontinuous. The buffer also causes a certain delay.

Transmission Distance

Cloud Connect uses a DCI backbone network for communications, and the latency depends on the transmission distance and transmission loss.

• A longer distance results in more loss and higher latency.
• A shorter distance results in less loss and lower latency.

To ensure connection reliability, inter-region services are usually carried by multiple connections. The length of each connection varies slightly. Therefore, Cloud Connect does not guarantee the latency.

Advantages of Cloud Connect Compared with the Internet

Two scenarios are presented here to compare the network performance of Cloud Connect and the Internet.

Quality of network between CN North-Beijing4 and CN-Hong Kong

Figure 1 Internet test results

Figure 2 Cloud Connect test results

Quality of network connection between CN East-Shanghai1 and CN-Hong Kong

Figure 3 Internet test results

Figure 4 Cloud Connect test results

You can see from the test results that the performance of Cloud Connect is better than that of the Internet in terms of network latency. Cloud Connect outperforms the Internet in terms of packet loss and jitter.

In summary, Cloud Connect can provide more accurate data transmission and more stable network communications.