Understanding Backup Latency

You can monitor the backup latency for a computer to see how much time passes from when files change on your computer to when the files are on the backup server.

What is backup latency?

Backup latency is the average amount of time from when a file is updated on your computer to the time it is on the backup server.

Backup latency is affected by the amount of data changing on your computer at a given time, the speed of your Internet connection, and general traffic on the Internet on the route between your computer and the backup server.

As a general guideline, a backup latency of a couple hours or less is not a problem. For example, a backup latency that increases during the day but that catches up on backup at night is acceptable. However, a backup latency that continues to grow and does not catch up on backup is not acceptable.

Contrast a typical backup latency of 15 minutes or even two hours through LiveVault Online Backup Service, with the traditional backup where your backup latency is up to 24 hours if you back up your data each night.

Interpreting the backup latency chart

Use the Backup Latency chart in MyLiveVault to help determine whether your data is being backed up in a reasonable timeframe. The chart graphs the backup latency for the computer where:

The Latency time value indicates the amount of time that passed from when files changed on the computer to when the files were on the backup server.
The Time of sample value indicates when the latency was measured, for example 3 hrs ago.

The chart is updated with new sample data every 20 minutes.

Generally you should see low backup latency, with some spikes during times of high data change rates or when your Internet connection usage is high for purposes other than backup. However, the latency should return to a low normal rate as the changed data is transferred to the backup server.

In some instances the text (insignificant latency recorded) is displayed. This indicates that you are not experiencing latency, for example if your Internet connection is very fast for the amount of data that is changing on your computer.

In addition, located above the Backup Latency chart is a bar graph summarizing the quality of the latency (good, fair, or poor)

where:

Good = latency of zero to two hours
Fair = latency of two to five hours
Poor = latency of over five hours

For example, you may see a Backup Latency chart similar to the following:

This chart shows that this computer's data is generally being backed up in less than 10 minutes, with the exception of a short spike of latency of about 25 minutes. Overall this indicates that backup is keeping up with data change rate and backup latency is not an issue.

High backup latency over an extended period of time means that your data is not getting backed up in a reasonable timeframe.

If you see consistent high backup latency, then this may indicate that your Internet connection is too slow for the amount of data that is changing on your computer. In this case, you may want to check the Bandwidth Usage charts for each of the computer's backup configurations. These charts will help identify the data that is changing frequently.

Addressing high backup latency

To address high backup latency, you may choose to do one or more of the following:

Obtain a higher-speed Internet connection.
If you have limited the bandwidth available for backup usage through MyLiveVault, either remove the limit so we can use all available bandwidth as required or increase the limit so more bandwidth is available.
Reduce the amount of data being backed up, for example, by excluding data that is not business-critical.

If you are concerned about high backup latency, we strongly recommend contacting Customer Service for assistance in analyzing what is causing the high backup latency and determining the most appropriate course of action.

Related Information

Monitoring Backup Latency
Understanding Backup Bandwidth Usage
Monitoring Backup: An Overview