Once you understand Netscape Application Server's capabilities, you can focus on maximizing performance within your system's processing scope. Your number one goal in deploying NAS is to make sure that its performance is optimal for your environment. Throughput refers to capacity, or the number of requests that NAS can service in a given time period. A request consists of a single user's attempt to access data, and the return of that data by the server. Throughput is measured in requests per minute or requests per second.
Response time is the time it takes for a request to be processed.
You begin measuring response time from the moment a user submits a request until the moment the server returns the result of the request back to the user. The unit of measurement for response time is seconds. Scalability refers to the ability to support an increase in users and requests, also referred to as an increase in load, by proportionally increasing hardware resources, without degrading response time or system stability . In other words, scalability is the system's ability to cope with an increase in users and requests when that increase is matched with a proportional increase in hardware resources. If response time degrades, despite the addition of hardware resources in proportion to the increase in users, then the system is not scalable.