Degree of parallelism

The degree of parallelism (DOP) is a metric which indicates how many operations can be or are being simultaneously executed by a computer. It is used as an indicator of the complexity of algorithms, and is especially useful for describing the performance of parallel programs and multi-processor systems.{{cite book |editor1-last=Deprettere |editor1-first=Ed F. |editor2-last=Takala |editor2-first=Jarmo |editor3-last=Leupers |editor3-first=Rainer |editor4-last=Bhattacharyya |editor4-first=Shuvra S. |title=Handbook of Signal Processing Systems |date=13 October 2018 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=9783319917344 |page=552 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=soJyDwAAQBAJ |access-date=12 April 2023}}

A program running on a parallel computer may utilize different numbers of processors at different times. For each time period, the number of processors used to execute a program is defined as the degree of parallelism. The plot of the DOP as a function of time for a given program is called the parallelism profile.{{cite book |last1=Wagner |first1=Thomas D. |last2=Carlson |first2=Brian M. |title=An Algorithm for Off-Line Detection of Phases in Execution Profiles |date=20 April 1994 |isbn=9783540580218 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QzLj_BPUdO0C&dq=%22parallelism+profile%22+%22function+of+time%22&pg=PA253 |access-date=12 April 2023}}