Wall clock time

from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_clock_time

 

 

Succinctly stated, wall clock time is the human perception of the passage of time from the start to the completion of a task. In the context of a task being performed on a computer, wall clock time or wall time is a measure of how much real time that elapses from start to end, including time that passes due to programmed (artificial) delays or waiting for resources to become available. In other words, it is the difference between the time at which a task finishes and the time at which the task started.