Performance testing is a type of non functional testing intended to determine the responsiveness, throughput, reliability, and/or scalability of a system under a given workload. Throughput is the number of units of work that can be handled per unit of time; for instance, number of requests per second (RPS) , calls per day, hits per second, reports per year, etc. 

In this video controlling the throughput is demonstrated.

Throughput is a business concern. Throughput can be changed (increased/decreased) by configuring a number of virtual users and introducing pauses with timers. 

If you want to simulate specific throughput values you will need to use special timers called Constant Throughput Timer or Throughput Shaping Timer. Constant Throughput Timer is available out of the box with JMeter. Throughput Shaping Timer is a plugin and you need to install the plugin.

These timers will pause the threads and try to achieve the  specified throughput value. Throughput value in the Constant Throughput Timer can be changed to different values by using a variable or property. 

Throughput shaping timer can be used to configure different throughput values at different times. Throughput Shaping Timer with Concurrency Thread Group and the Feedback Function can be used to create additional thread required to maintain the desired throughput values. Want to know more about the Throughput Shaping Timer? Read this post.

You can view the throughput (RPS) with the Transactions Per Second Listener.

Controlling the throughput in a distributed testing environment is not an easy task. You need to configure the agents (JMeter servers) carefully. With RedLine13 you can manage the throughputs easily.