Bandwidth and latency represent two fundamental and distinct metrics of network performance:
- **Bandwidth** measures the transmission capacity of a connection, indicating the volume of data that can be transferred per unit of time (e.g., data per second).
- **Latency** measures the delay or duration required for a packet of data to travel across the network from source to destination.

A prevalent misconception is that increasing bandwidth automatically reduces latency. However, link width and responsiveness are independent: a high-bandwidth connection that has long delays will still feel laggy and slow to respond.

Bandwidth vs. Latency

The cloud refers to physical data centers comprising remote computers and servers that are accessed over a network. Contrary to the misconception that the cloud is an abstract virtual entity detached from physical hardware, cloud services run on real, tangible computing hardware owned and operated by third-party providers.

The Cloud

The Internet is a vast network of networks, uniting millions of independent networks that communicate and interconnect by adhering to common, shared protocols.

The Internet

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a logical network-layer identifier assigned to a device to enable addressing and the routing of packets across multiple interconnected networks. Rather than identifying a permanent physical hardware interface or pinpointing an individual's exact physical location, an IP address typically specifies a device's network or regional presence.

IP Address

A Media Access Control (MAC) address is a permanent hardware identifier embedded directly into a device's network interface card. It operates at the local link level to uniquely distinguish and identify a device on a local network segment.

MAC Address

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a core transport-layer protocol designed to provide reliable, ordered, and error-checked end-to-end delivery of data between networked applications. Operating on top of the best-effort Internet Protocol (IP), TCP guarantees data integrity by numbering individual data units, tracking acknowledgments from the receiver, retransmitting unacknowledged or lost data, and adjusting transmission rates to manage network congestion.

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

The TCP three-way handshake is an ordered connection-establishment procedure performed before any application data is transmitted. It consists of three sequential steps:
1. The initiating client transmits a SYN (synchronize) packet to request opening a connection.
2. The recipient server responds with a SYN-ACK packet to acknowledge the request and signal consent.
3. The client sends a final ACK packet back to the server, establishing the bidirectional connection.

While this preliminary handshake ensures synchronized and reliable communications, it introduces a slight startup delay compared to connectionless protocols.

TCP Three-Way Handshake

The Domain Name System (DNS) serves as the directory or "phone book" of the Internet by translating human-readable domain names, such as example.com, into the numeric IP addresses required by networked computers to route data. Without DNS resolution, users would be required to memorize and manually input numeric IP addresses to locate and communicate with network hosts.

Domain Name System (DNS)

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Ch.4 Network Performance and Metrics - The Architecture of Connected Systems: Tracing End-to-End Data Flow @ University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Bandwidth, Latency, and Networking Misconceptions - The Architecture of Connected Systems: Tracing End-to-End Data Flow @ University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

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