In computing, the workload is the amount of processing that the computer has been given to do at a given time. The workload consists of some amount of application programming running in the computer and usually some number of users connected to and interacting with the computer's applications.
A defined workload can be specified as a benchmark when evaluating a computer system in terms of performance (how easily the computer handles the workload), which in turn is generally divided into response time (the time between a user request and a response to the request from the system) and throughput (how much work is accomplished over a period of time).
This was last updated in June 2004