Communication networks are often rated in terms of latency and bandwidth . Linear speedup Speedup that is directly proportional to the number of parallel processors used. Linear speedup is the ideal for any parallel program, since Amdahl's Law restricts speedup based on the amount of the program that is still serial. Super linear speedup is sometimes achievable due to other factors related to the processor architecture. Load balance A measure of how evenly work is distributed among a set of parallel processors.
Parallel programs are most efficient when the load is perfectly balanced, ie.
Most easily thought about for grid-based computations, where to update the values at one point in the grid it might be necessary to know the values at each of its neighbouring points. Message passing A form of interprocessor communication. See the HPCinfo message-passing page for more details. A category in Flynn's taxonomy . Multiprocessor A computer with more than one processor but a single address space .