scalability

2 definitions found

scalability - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  scalability
      n 1: the quality of being scalable

scalability - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  scalability
  
     How well a solution to some problem will work when the size of
     the problem increases.
  
     For example, a central server of some kind with ten
     clients may perform adequately but with a thousand clients
     it might fail to meet response time requirements.  In this
     case, the average response time probably scales linearly with
     the number of clients, we say it has a complexity of O(N)
     ("order N") but there are problems with other complexities.
     E.g. if we want N nodes in a network to be able to communicate
     with each other, we could connect each one to a central
     exchange, requiring O(N) wires or we could provide a direct
     connection between each pair, requiring O(N^2) wires (the
     exact number or formula is not usually so important as the
     highest power of N involved).
  
     (1995-03-29)