General

The Virtela Matrix is a representation of data collected over the last hour across Virtela's network. It displays average latency, jitter, and packet loss measurements in a tabular format. The rows along the side are the source and the columns across the top are the destination for the data. Each cell contains the data for a particular combination of source and destination. Clicking on the cell will take you to a detailed graph for that source and destination over the last 24 hours.

Latency

Round trip latency, also known as delay, is the time it takes for a data packet to travel from one point on the network (the source) to another (the destination) and back. Latency is directly proportional to the distance, determined by the number of hops in the network, between the source and destination.

Virtela measures the average round trip latency from every Virtela Service POP (VSP) to every other VSP in Virtela's network. The measurement is made in milliseconds (1000 milliseconds = 1 second). The VSP to VSP round trip latency is measured every 5 minutes. The Matrix is updated every hour with the average of all measurements for the last hour. Average round trip latency of 90 milliseconds (ms) or less is generally considered by the industry to be acceptable in the domestic US.

Jitter

One-way jitter is the amount of variation in delay in receiving data packets transported across a network. A network with zero jitter would take exactly the same amount of time to transport every data packet. On the other hand, a network with high jitter would take much longer to transport some data packets than it does others. Jitter is particularly important for the transport of audio and video, which require data packets to arrive at regular intervals to avoid jerkiness or unintelligable sounds.

Virtela measures average one way jitter from every VSP to every other VSP in Virtela's network. The measurement is made in milliseconds (1000 milliseconds = 1 second). The VSP to VSP jitter is measured every five minutes. The Matrix is updated every hour with the average of all measurements for the last hour. Average jitter of 10 milliseconds (ms) or less is generally considered by the industry to be acceptable in the domestic US.

Packet Loss

Round trip packet loss is the percentage of packets that were sent from a source to a destination and back that were not received by the source. A network that experiences no packet loss would have a 0% packet loss. A network that drops all packets in transit would have 100% packet loss. Certain applications, such as audio and video, are very sensitive to packet loss. Other applications, such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP), are less sensitive to packet loss.

Virtela measures round trip packet loss from every VSP to every other VSP in Virtela's network. All values are calculated as a percentage (# of lost packets / # of total packets). The round trip packet loss is measured every five minutes. The Matrix is updated every hour with the average of all measurements for the last hour. Average round trip packet loss of 1% or less is generally considered by the industry to be acceptable in the domestic US.