Scalability describes how well a system uses additional processors to improve execution speed or throughput. A single-threaded program gains no performance from extra processors; ideally, performance rises in proportion to the available processing power. section 8.4 section 8.4.2
Serial work limits the gains: adding processors can speed up parallel work, but not sections where only one thread is useful. Waiting for other threads or I/O can also leave processors idle. section 8.4.2
Assess scalability by checking for common limits:
- Estimate how much of the program is serial before expecting gains from more processors. section 8.4.2
- Test across processor configurations: contention that is manageable on a small system can hurt performance on a larger one. section 11.2.6
Compare across workloads and systems
A 24-core system might be expected to run a workload 24 times faster than a single-core system, but serial work could cap the gain at threefold. Data-parallel work can also increase throughput: processing several files concurrently handles more data in the same time, even if each file still takes just as long. section 11.2.6 section 1.2.2


























