workload

The fundamental challenge of computer system performance is for your system to have enough power to handle the work you ask it to do. It sounds really simple, but helping people meet this challenge has been the point of my whole career. It has kept me busy for 26 years, and there’s no end in sight.

Capacity and Workload

Our challenge is the relationship between a computer’s capacity and its workload. I think of capacity as an empty box representing a machine’s ability to do work over time. Workload is the work your computer does, in the form of programs that it runs for you, executed over time. Workload is the content that can fill the capacity box.