Werner Vogels: Median latency is useless; engineers must optimize the 99th percentile
Dr. Werner Vogels · A Conversation with Werner Vogels · Y Combinator · Nov 11, 2018 · at 8:22
Amazon CTO Dr. Werner Vogels outlines how Amazon built a data-driven engineering culture around tail latency rather than average performance metrics.
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“A medium latency of, let's say, 1.2 seconds off your webpage to your customers doesn't say anything. Just says that 50% of your customers have a worse experience. You need to know how much worse. And then, from an engineer, so for example, the 99 percentile or the 99 percentile is way more important often in those cases.”
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