GLOSSARY
Scalability
Scalability describes how a system handles larger workloads while continuing to meet agreed requirements for quality, response time and availability. Resources or workflows may need to change. The economic question also concerns cost per successfully completed task.
From one user to a sales organisation
An application works well with a few test users. At month end, many employees prepare proposals simultaneously. Technical capacity, external service limits and human approvals now interact. The bottleneck may be somewhere entirely different from the one observed in the initial trial.
More computing capacity offers limited help if every exception needs the same manager. Conversely, generous automatic resource allocation can increase spending without a corresponding improvement in useful output. Scaling therefore requires a shared view of technology, responsibility and work organisation.
Combine realistic demand and exceptions
A credible test includes concurrent usage, cases of different difficulty and invalid requests. Measure waiting times, failures, accepted outputs and cost. Throughput alone is insufficient if particular users are repeatedly delayed. An agreed cost model should show the implications of additional customer groups or demand peaks. That evidence supports capacity decisions without assuming that technical expansion automatically produces profitable growth.