you would need to work with your ISP or external storage provider in order to improve their routing and peering, or you need to move your data to another supplier that you know has a lower latency. In order to control latency the best connections to use are the dedicated leased lines or metro Ethernet directly back into your storage. These will suffer far less variance as they are not reliant on multiple providers across the internet and have the ability to deploy Quality of Service (QoS) which guarantees the delivery of certain types of data (e.g. VoIP, iSCSI, etc.). If you're still suffering from latency issues, even on a leased line or metro Ethernet service, then it could well be the size of the connection versus the amount of data you're trying to transmit. In that case the only ways to improve this are either to increase your connection size or deploy compression at both ends in order to try to make better use of the bandwidth you have available. The decision to store your data externally isn't an easy one. However, provided you manage the risks and ensure you have the connectivity in place to be able to use the data once it has been placed outside of your organisation it can be a very effective way of improving the availability and resilience of your storage. In a follow up to part 1, David Barker, founder and technical director at green colocation and connectivity supplier, 4D Data Centres