---
title: "Application latency due to network saturation | Grafana Cloud documentation"
description: "How to diagnose and handle network saturation"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Application latency due to network saturation

When an application has high latency, look for network saturation if you have already:

- Found no OOM killing or CPU throttling
- Increased CPU and memory

The limitation of bandwidth for an application can cause dropped packets.

Navigate to the **Network** tab to view bandwidth and saturation.

## Bandwidth limits and saturation

In the following example, these graphs shows an approximate 6-hour time period for a Cluster.

The **Network Bandwidth by node** graph indicates a harmonic effect resembling a straight line. The peaks do not extend beyond 2 GiB/s, perhaps because the network interfaces of those nodes are at bandwidth capacity.

The **Network Saturation by node** graph shows many spikes on the receive side (upper half), indicating saturation and dropped packets. This can lead to request queueing, packet retries, and increased response latencies as a result.

[Approximate six-hour time period showing network saturation for a Cluster](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/k8s/networksaturation.png)

A normal set of graphs for an approximate six-hour period shows no harmonic effect for bandwidth and little activity for saturation.

[Approximate six-hour time period showing no saturation and normal bandwidth for a Cluster](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/k8s/normalbandwidth.png)

## Resolution for network saturation

To increase bandwidth and eliminate saturation, increase the number of Nodes where the application is deployed. You can then recheck the **Network** tab to see the results.