along with a private connection back into your storage using the same fibre into your premises. How to deal with latency issues Latency is the time it takes for a packet of data to make the round-trip from your computer to the storage and back again, and is the biggest headache with externally stored data. If you have high latency then file access will run extremely slowly, and if the latency is high enough you will likely see data loss or corruption. The level of latency expected should drive your choice of provider, storage type and location. For example, if you require synchronised replication across databases, you need to be able to access your storage with a latency of less than 5ms otherwise the databases will lose sync and the data will not be consistent across both locations. Any connection to storage that uses the public internet, as in an IPSEC VPN, will be more susceptible to latency variations and at the same time there will be less that you are able to do about it. To reduce latency 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