# Service Performance at Capacity: Request Rate, Throughput, and Graceful Behavior

DevFeed: [Service Performance at Capacity: Request Rate, Throughput, and Graceful Behavior](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/graceful-behavior-at-capacity-21967.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.nelhage.com/post/systems-at-capacity/>)

Author: Nelson Elhage

Published: 2023-08-07T16:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Nelson Elhage](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/nelson-elhage.md>)

Topics: [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/systems.md>), [servers](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/servers.md>), [web applications](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/web-applications.md>), [Back end](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/backend.md>), [TCP/IP](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/tcp-ip.md>), [Firewall](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/firewall.md>), [Networks](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/networks.md>), [Python](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/python.md>)

Tags: [architecture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/architecture.md>), [backend](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/backend.md>), [capacity](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/capacity.md>), [firewall](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/firewall.md>), [http](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/http.md>), [network](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/network.md>), [performance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/performance.md>), [python](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/python.md>), [tcp-ip](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tcp-ip.md>)

## AI overview

The article examines service performance by relating incoming request rate to successful throughput. It introduces these metrics through examples involving an HTTP web application and a TCP/IP router or firewall.

## Source excerpt

Suppose we've got a service. We'll gloss over the details for now, but let's stipulate that it accepts requests from the outside world, and takes some action in response. Maybe those requests are HTTP requests, or RPCs, or just incoming packets to be routed at the network layer. We can get more specific later. What can we say about its performance? All we know is that it receives requests, and that it acts on them.