When deploying SharePoint in enterprise environments, Microsoft recommends maintaining network latency below 1ms between web front-end servers and database servers. Excessive latency directly impacts:

• Page load times
• Authentication performance
• Database query execution
• Search index propagation

While ping is the most basic tool, professionals need multiple measurement methods:

1. PowerShell Test-Connection (Advanced Ping)

# Continuous latency monitoring with statistics
Test-Connection -ComputerName SQLServer01 -Count 100 -Delay 2 |
    Measure-Object -Property ResponseTime -Average -Maximum -Minimum |
    Format-Table -AutoSize

# Output sample:
# Average    Maximum    Minimum
# -------    -------    -------
# 0.78       1.2        0.4

2. Windows Performance Monitor Counters

Essential counters for SharePoint latency analysis:

Network Interface(*)\Current Bandwidth
Network Interface(*)\Output Queue Length
TCPv4\Connections Established
TCPv4\Connection Failures

3. Latency Breakdown with PathPing

pathping -q 50 -w 1000 -4 SQLServer01

# -q : Number of queries per hop
# -w : Timeout in milliseconds
# -4 : Force IPv4 (recommended for SharePoint)

Synthetic Transaction Monitoring

# Measure SQL query roundtrip time
$sw = [System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch]::StartNew()
$conn = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection
$conn.ConnectionString = "Server=SQLServer01;Database=SharePoint_Config;Integrated Security=True"
$conn.Open()
$sw.Stop()
Write-Output ("Connection Latency: " + $sw.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms")

Wireshark Analysis for Microsecond Precision

Filter for SharePoint-specific traffic:

(tcp.port == 1433 || tcp.port == 50288) && (tcp.analysis.ack_rtt > 0.001)

Sample script for scheduled monitoring:

$threshold = 1 #ms
$result = Test-Connection -ComputerName SQLServer01 -Count 1 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

if ($result.ResponseTime -gt $threshold) {
    # Trigger alert logic
    Write-EventLog -LogName "Application" -Source "SharePoint" -EntryType Warning -EventId 5001 
        -Message "Network latency exceeded threshold: $($result.ResponseTime)ms"
}

-- SQL Server roundtrip test
DECLARE @start DATETIME2 = SYSUTCDATETIME()
EXEC sp_executesql N'SELECT TOP 1 * FROM [SharePoint_Config].[dbo].[Objects]'
SELECT DATEDIFF(MICROSECOND, @start, SYSUTCDATETIME())/1000.0 AS ExecutionLatencyMs

Key patterns to investigate:

• Consistent latency >0.8ms during business hours
• Jitter (variance) >0.3ms between measurements
• Retransmissions in TCP streams
• ICMP vs TCP latency discrepancies

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When deploying SharePoint, Microsoft recommends keeping network latency between web servers and SQL database servers under 1ms for optimal performance. This strict requirement ensures smooth operation of real-time collaboration features and prevents bottlenecks in database transactions.

While ping is the most basic tool, it has limitations for precise SharePoint measurements:

ping -n 100 -l 8 your_database_server

This sends 100 ICMP packets with 8-byte payloads, but doesn't account for TCP-level latency that SharePoint actually uses.

For SharePoint-specific monitoring, add these Performance Monitor counters:

\Network Interface(*)\Current Bandwidth
\TCPv4\Connections Established
\Network Interface(*)\Output Queue Length
\TCPv4\RTT
\TCPv4\Connect Failures

This script measures TCP latency more accurately than ping:

# SharePoint TCP Latency Test
$server = "your_database_server"
$port = 1433 # Default SQL port
$iterations = 100
$results = @()

for ($i=1; $i -le $iterations; $i++) {
    $tcpClient = New-Object System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient
    $timer = [System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch]::StartNew()
    $tcpClient.Connect($server, $port)
    $timer.Stop()
    $results += $timer.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds
    $tcpClient.Close()
}

$results | Measure-Object -Average -Maximum -Minimum

Windows 10/Server 2016+ includes this useful cmdlet:

Test-NetConnection -ComputerName your_database_server -Port 1433 -InformationLevel Detailed

When reviewing latency data:

• Consistent spikes may indicate network congestion
• Values >1ms require investigation for SharePoint deployments
• Check for correlation with SharePoint ULS logs

For production environments, configure this Data Collector Set in perfmon:

1. Create new Data Collector Set
2. Add the TCPv4 and Network Interface counters mentioned above
3. Set sample interval to 15 seconds
4. Configure alerts for latency >0.8ms