Throughput (Networking)

networking

Definition

Throughput (Networking)

Let a link carry $N$ bits successfully from sender to receiver over a time interval $\Delta t$.

The throughput of the link is the rate of successful data delivery:

$$T=\frac{N}{\Delta t}\text{[bits/s]}$$

More generally, for a network path $P=(e_1,\dots ,e_k)$ of links with capacities $R_1,\dots ,R_k$, the end-to-end throughput is bounded by the bottleneck link:

$$T_{\text{e2e}}\le \underset{i}{\min }{R}_i$$

In the presence of cross-traffic, $T_{\text{e2e}}$ is further reduced by the share of capacity available to the flow.