Latency: Reduce delay in software systems shows you how to troubleshoot latency in existing applications and create low-latency systems from the ground up.
Pekka Enberg
Latency is one of those invisible performance killers — even systems that work can feel slow, fragile, or unresponsive because of micro-delays that accumulate. That’s exactly what Pekka Enberg tackles in his new book, Latency, now available through Manning’s Early Access Program (MEAP).
From first principles through hands-on techniques, Latency shows you how to spot, understand, and fix unwanted delay in software and infrastructure. It doesn’t treat latency as an afterthought — it treats it as a first-class concern across layers (OS, network, application, data).
Here’s what you’ll get out of this book:
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A clear distinction between latency vs. bandwidth, and why bandwidth optimizations often miss the real issue
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Models (Little’s Law, Amdahl’s Law) and measurement strategies to quantify latency and its sources
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Techniques to optimize at every level: colocation, replication, partitioning, caching
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Ways to speed internal logic: algorithmic improvements, memory tuning, lock-free concurrency
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Methods to hide latency when you can’t eliminate it: asynchronous processing, speculative execution, prefetching
One thing I especially liked in early previews is the code repository that comes with the book — you can experiment with reference implementations to better internalize the concepts. GitHub
If your goal is to build fast, responsive, high-quality systems — especially those that operate over networks, in distributed environments, or on tight SLAs — this is a resource that’ll help you put theory into practice.
- Full details: https://www.manning.com/books/latency
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