Think of a transport system: throughput asks how many people reach their destination in a given time, not how quickly one person travels. In computing, throughput is the number of tasks a system handles over a period of time. section 1.2
Motorcycle versus bus
A motorcycle may complete one trip faster than a bus, giving it lower latency. Yet a bus can carry many more people per hour, giving it higher throughput. Improving throughput therefore does not necessarily make each individual task finish sooner. section 1.2
Use throughput when measuring the amount of work completed:
- Count completed tasks per unit of time. section 1.2
- Consider concurrency when seeking more performance from multiple processing resources. section 1.2
