Traffic Optimization

Squeezing every millisecond out of your network. Because speed is a feature.

Speed is a Feature

In high-frequency trading, real-time gaming, and ad-tech, latency directly converts to revenue. A 100ms delay can cost you 1% of sales. A 1-second delay increases bounce rates by 32%. Users expect instant responses, and your infrastructure needs to deliver.

We analyze your entire stack — from the application layer to the transport layer — to identify and eliminate bottlenecks. Our optimization services focus on real, measurable improvements: reduced P99 latency, eliminated packet loss, and improved throughput.

Typical results: Our clients see 30-50% reduction in P95 latency, near-zero packet loss, and significant improvements in user experience metrics like Time to First Byte (TTFB) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).

Optimization Techniques

TCP Protocol Tuning

TCP's default behavior was designed for reliability on early, unreliable networks — not for modern high-bandwidth, low-latency applications. We tune TCP parameters to match your specific workload:

  • Congestion Control Selection: Switching from legacy CUBIC to BBR (Bottleneck Bandwidth and Round-trip propagation time) can dramatically improve throughput on lossy or high-latency links.
  • Initial Congestion Window: Increasing initcwnd from the default 10 to 30+ allows more data in the first round trip, reducing slow start penalties for modern connections.
  • Receive Window Tuning: Proper buffer sizing prevents the receiver from throttling high-bandwidth senders.
  • TCP Fast Open: Eliminating a round trip on reconnections by sending data in the SYN packet.
  • Selective Acknowledgments (SACK): Faster recovery from packet loss without retransmitting already-received data.

TLS Termination & Handshake Optimization

TLS handshakes add 1-2 round trips before any data can flow. Strategic optimization of TLS reduces this overhead dramatically:

  • TLS 1.3 Migration: TLS 1.3 reduces handshakes to 1 round trip (1-RTT) versus 2 round trips in TLS 1.2. We ensure your entire stack supports TLS 1.3.
  • 0-RTT Session Resumption: For returning visitors, TLS 1.3's 0-RTT allows sending data in the very first packet — instant connections for repeat users.
  • Strategic Termination Points: Placing TLS termination at edge locations minimizes the handshake latency users experience.
  • Certificate Chain Optimization: Smaller certificate chains mean faster handshakes. We audit and optimize your certificate configuration.
  • OCSP Stapling: Embedding certificate validity information to eliminate additional lookups during handshake.

HTTP/3 & QUIC Adoption

HTTP/3 (QUIC) represents a fundamental improvement over HTTP/2, especially on mobile and lossy networks:

  • Eliminated Head-of-Line Blocking: HTTP/2 over TCP suffers when a single packet is lost — all streams stall. QUIC's stream multiplexing means lost packets only affect their specific stream.
  • Faster Connection Establishment: QUIC combines the TLS and connection handshakes, reaching full encryption in a single round trip (or zero for repeat connections).
  • Connection Migration: Users switching from WiFi to cellular maintain their connection without re-handshaking — critical for mobile applications.
  • Implementation Strategy: We help you migrate intake layers to HTTP/3 while maintaining backward compatibility for older clients.

Edge Caching & CDN Optimization

Moving compute and content closer to users is one of the most impactful optimizations available. We optimize your CDN configuration for maximum performance:

  • Cache Strategy Design: Optimizing cache-control headers, cache keys, and TTLs to maximize hit rates while ensuring content freshness.
  • Dynamic Content Caching: Caching API responses at the edge where possible, with intelligent invalidation strategies.
  • Multi-CDN Architecture: Implementing failover and performance-based routing across multiple CDN providers for resilience and optimization.
  • Edge Compute: Deploying logic at the edge using Cloudflare Workers, AWS Lambda@Edge, or similar platforms to reduce origin load and latency.
  • Origin Shield: Reducing origin load by consolidating edge requests through intermediate caching layers.

Application-Level Optimization

Network optimization is most effective when paired with application-level improvements:

  • Connection Pooling: Reusing connections to backends instead of establishing new ones for each request.
  • Compression: Brotli compression for text resources, optimized image formats (WebP, AVIF) for visual content.
  • Preconnect & Preload: Hinting browsers to establish connections and load resources before they're needed.
  • API Optimization: Reducing payload sizes, implementing GraphQL for precise data fetching, batch processing for multiple operations.

Our Optimization Process

1. Baseline Measurement

We deploy synthetic monitoring from global locations and analyze real user monitoring (RUM) data to establish baseline performance metrics.

2. Bottleneck Analysis

Using packet captures, application traces, and network telemetry, we identify exactly where latency is introduced in your stack.

3. Targeted Optimization

We implement changes targeting the highest-impact bottlenecks first, measuring improvement after each change.

Tools & Technologies

We use industry-standard tools for analysis and monitoring:

  • Packet Analysis: Wireshark, tcpdump, and custom eBPF probes for deep packet inspection
  • Synthetic Monitoring: Catchpoint, ThousandEyes, and custom probing infrastructure
  • Real User Monitoring: Integration with your existing RUM tools (Datadog RUM, New Relic Browser, etc.)
  • Load Testing: k6, Locust, and custom traffic generators for controlled performance testing
  • Network Telemetry: VPC Flow Logs, CDN analytics, and custom dashboards in Grafana

Ready to Reduce Your Latency?

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