diff --git a/src/main/java/net/onrc/onos/ofcontroller/flowmanager/ParallelFlowDatabaseOperation.java b/src/main/java/net/onrc/onos/ofcontroller/flowmanager/ParallelFlowDatabaseOperation.java
index f5cb265..f80d014 100644
--- a/src/main/java/net/onrc/onos/ofcontroller/flowmanager/ParallelFlowDatabaseOperation.java
+++ b/src/main/java/net/onrc/onos/ofcontroller/flowmanager/ParallelFlowDatabaseOperation.java
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
 public class ParallelFlowDatabaseOperation extends FlowDatabaseOperation {
     private final static Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(FlowDatabaseOperation.class);
 
-    private final static int numThreads = 20; // TODO: make this configurable
+    private final static int numThreads = Integer.valueOf(System.getProperty("parallelFlowDatabase.numThreads", "32"));
     private final static ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(numThreads);
 
     /**