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Optimizing global message transit latency: a journey through TCP configuration

Our team tackled high latency in realtime messaging by optimizing TCP/IP settings. Learn about our process, findings, and TCP config solutions.

So after an idle period defined as two round trip times, the TCP congestion window will reset to slow start mode, in which only two packets are allowed to be in flight. This and other algorithms successfully prevented "congestion collapse," but they also introduced increased latency for bursty applications and unnecessary delays in situations where the network had sufficient capacity. In this particular case, our investigation revealed that the default TCP setting, tcp_slow_start_after_idle, while historically effective in preventing network congestion, was causing significant delays for our customer's bursty traffic.

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