Capacity
Concurrent users is a common way to plan, measure and manage the capacity of services. In this context, it is common to look at the peak concurrent users for a period of time to decide if you have enough capacity. For example, a sales platform has capacity for 1,000 concurrent users. When peak concurrent users hits 950, they decide to scale up capacity to 1,200 concurrent users.Licenses
Service licenses may be based on concurrent users. This means that different users can use the service but there is a limit on how many people can access the service at the same time under the license. In some cases, a license is based on one concurrent user. This may allow a user to connect to the service from different devices as long as it is not at the same time.Analytics
It is common for analytics tools for publishing, media and software to report concurrent users. This can be based on the number of unique users that make a request in a period of time such as 15 minutes.Performance Testing
Performance testing tools are often based on a simulation of concurrent users. Tools typically allow you to define how many concurrent users to use along with other parameters such as the number of requests per minute each user makes. Each concurrent user results in overhead to a service such as a session. As such, performance testing this way more accurately reflects regular production conditions than simply sending a number of requests per minute all from different users or all from the same user.| Overview: Concurrent Users | ||
Type | ||
Definition | The total number of people who use a service in a predefined period of time. | |
Related Concepts | ||
