Throughput measurement using a synthetic job stream

Abstract

Managers of computer facilities frequently need to be able to measure the throughput of their installations. Throughput is based on the amount of work a system can perform in a given time in a particular environment, and is usually measured as the reciprocal of the running time of selected jobs. The throughput of a computer system is a function of the hardware configuration, the operating system software and the workload characteristics. Once the characteristics of the workload are identified, the configuration and operating system can be optimized in terms of throughput for that environment. Improvements resulting from system changes can be evaluated using throughput measurements.