Basic HTML version of Foils prepared May 7 1996
| Latency - The time taken to service a request or deliver a message which is independent of the size or nature of the operation. The latency of a message passing system is the minimum time to deliver a message, even one of zero length that does not have to leave the source processor. The latency of a file system is the time required to decode and execute a null operation. |
| Load balance - The degree to which work is evenly distributed among available processors. A program executes most quickly when it is perfectly load balanced, that is when every processor has a share of the total amount of work to perform so that all processors complete their assigned tasks at the same time. |