1.4.4 Throughput plateau
Throughput plateau is a capacity measurement and is the maximum obtainable system output in a unit of time. In other words, it is the maximum processing rate that a system is capable of.
Consider a restaurant example where:
| The restaurant only has one server. |
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| It takes one minute to serve a customer. |
The maximum throughput is one customer/minute.
Figure 1-7 Throughput plateau and the use of queuing
The throughput plateau is not a measurement of arriving requests, but how many are fulfilled. Excess requests may:
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| Queue: Requests start to line up behind one another waiting to be serviced. |
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| Leave: The requestor gives up waiting and goes elsewhere. |
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| Be discarded: The request is thrown away because there are insufficient resources to process it. |