The number of traversed edges per second (TEPS) that can be performed by a supercomputer cluster is a measure of both the communications capabilities and computational power of the machine.
This is in contrast to the more standard metric of floating-point operations per second (FLOPS), which does not give any weight to the communication capabilities of the machine.
[1] In this context, an edge is a connection between two vertices on a graph, and the traversal is the ability of the machine to communicate data between these two points.
[2] The ability of an application to utilize a supercomputer cluster effectively depends not only on the raw speed of each processor, but also on the communication network.
[3] Therefore, alternative metrics that characterize the performance of a machine in a more holistic manner may be more relevant for many scientific applications, and may be desirable for making purchasing decisions.