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AWS data center latencies, visualized

benjdd.com

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Re: AWS data center latencies, visualized

#191
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your ISP peer directly with Aws?

No, which is a possible solution, but I suspect they simply dont peer locally.

Even if they did it's very unlikely they would peer in your town.

Geographic proximity isn't the main factor for peering and even if they did your session may still get terminated at a border network gateway in a big city and your traffic has to travel the same way.

Re: AWS data center latencies, visualized

#192
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would have to map out the cables to do that. Light in fiber optic cable travels roughly 70% of the speed of light ~210,000 km/s Earth's circumferences is ~40,000 kilometers. Direct route from the other side of Earth to another would be roughly 100 milliseconds, round trip 200 ms.

Since light travels at 100% the speed of light in a vacuum (by definition), I have wondered if latency over far distances could be improved by sending the data through a constellation of satellites in low earth orbit instead. Though I suspect the set of tradeoffs here (much lower throughput, much higher cost, more jitter in the latency due to satellites constantly moving around relative to the terrestrial surface) pr…

Yes. There are companies that sell microwave links over radio relay towers to various high frequency traders.

Re: AWS data center latencies, visualized

#193
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would have to map out the cables to do that. Light in fiber optic cable travels roughly 70% of the speed of light ~210,000 km/s Earth's circumferences is ~40,000 kilometers. Direct route from the other side of Earth to another would be roughly 100 milliseconds, round trip 200 ms.

Since light travels at 100% the speed of light in a vacuum (by definition), I have wondered if latency over far distances could be improved by sending the data through a constellation of satellites in low earth orbit instead. Though I suspect the set of tradeoffs here (much lower throughput, much higher cost, more jitter in the latency due to satellites constantly moving around relative to the terrestrial surface) pr…

Hollow core fiber (HCF) is designed to substantially reduce the latency of normal fiber while maintaining equivalent bandwidth. It's been deployed quite a bit for low latency trading applications within a metro area, but might find more uses in reducing long-haul interconnect latency.

Re: AWS data center latencies, visualized

#194

I have red-green color blindness, which makes it hard/impossible for me to distinguish between the 200ms lines. This affects about 8% of male population btw, maybe you can add a color-blind mode, very nice visualization otherwise!

Author here - Thanks for the suggestion Alex. From your perspective, what are some of the best ways you've seen people solve for this in the past? If you have links, please share.

Hi! Thanks for getting back to me, appreciate it. To be honest, I‘m not an expert at all in this topic. I‘d imagine choosing a colorblind-friendly palette (see: https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/ ) would be an easy fix. Alternatively, or in addition, you could use dotted/dashed/straight lines to visualize the latency buckets. Might make for an interesting effect?

Also it‘s common to hide this „colorblind mode“ behind a checkbox somewhere. So you don’t have to uglify your product. :-)

Re: AWS data center latencies, visualized

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here - Thanks for the suggestion Alex. From your perspective, what are some of the best ways you've seen people solve for this in the past? If you have links, please share.

Hi! Thanks for getting back to me, appreciate it. To be honest, I‘m not an expert at all in this topic. I‘d imagine choosing a colorblind-friendly palette (see: https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/ ) would be an easy fix. Alternatively, or in addition, you could use dotted/dashed/straight lines to visualize the latency buckets. Might make for an interesting effect? Also it‘s common to hide this „colorblind mode“ be…

Cool, thank you for the input.

Re: AWS data center latencies, visualized

#196

I have red-green color blindness, which makes it hard/impossible for me to distinguish between the 200ms lines. This affects about 8% of male population btw, maybe you can add a color-blind mode, very nice visualization otherwise!

Author here - Thanks for the suggestion Alex. From your perspective, what are some of the best ways you've seen people solve for this in the past? If you have links, please share.

not op but this is one of the classic dataviz color palette pickers https://colorbrewer2.org/#type=sequential&scheme=BuGn&n=3

https://venngage.com/tools/accessible-color-palette-generato... also seems nifty

Re: AWS data center latencies, visualized

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice hack, thank you! :-)

You can also use ublock origin, it has a section for your own filters: https://gist.github.com/aclarknexient/c39c83f2f97c3c6b1c307c...

benjdd.com##html:style(filter:hue-rotate(45deg))

Tested with uBlock Origin on Firefox Mobile.

Re: AWS data center latencies, visualized

#199

I have red-green color blindness, which makes it hard/impossible for me to distinguish between the 200ms lines. This affects about 8% of male population btw, maybe you can add a color-blind mode, very nice visualization otherwise!

It's sad that this is the top comment for the post. Many people have stopped posting their crappy work online due to harsh comments like yours. There's no easy reply to your comment. Maybe we should be less critical specially with "Make it fit for my workflow" type comment, and more so if it is built by some random guy in their free time, and not say a project which is asking money.

This was not a harsh criticism. Accessibility on the web is important, especially if you want people to actually engage with what you have published.

Color blindness is nothing new, there are freely available color blind friendly color plates. Pointing out to the author that they could make a small tweak to make their work more accessible is good feedback and should continue to be given.

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