Low threshold latency issues can result in the loss of millions of dollars

The importance of latency in firewall optimisation is affecting financial turnover on a dramatic scale, according to a security expert.

Speaking at an event last week, Net2S managing director Frederic Ponzo claimed that latency is becoming more and more of an issue for businesses, where a low threshold can result in financial difficulties.

Ponzo claimed that people often overlook latency issues despite it being generated at every step of the electronic processing chain, and blame the network instead.

Ponzo said: “What is wrong with firewalls? It is more than a network and they are not designed with latency in mind, they are not meant to be fast in the first place and are designed in this way.

“I think of it like a sedimentation process where the firewalls are layered and it is not uncommon to see thousands of firewalls layered together. What people have to do is clean them up to make them work efficiently.”

According to Net2S research, the cause of low threshold latency is applications and firewalls, with results showing that they are responsible for 85 per cent of problems.  

Kanway Loyal, finance sales manager at Fortinet, said: “Having a greater latency gives a trading environment an edge, where milliseconds can mean tens of millions of pounds a year difference. Where does latency tend to be taken out? This is an issue but what can companies do about it?

“We are seeing volatility in the market, field programmable gate arrays are the best way to increase traffic as we are seeing the need for speed as being greater than ever before, so it is not just latency. One customer said to me it is a big issue, but the packet drops are as important. It starts with dealing with the amount of data and then we will cope with latency.”



See original article on scmagazineuk.com