Introducing the Workload Manager

The Workload Manager gives system managers greater control over CPU scheduling at the process level than that provided by traditional scheduling subqueues. As a result, system managers can monitor and effectively manage system performance. For example, the Workload Manager allows system managers to provide a designated level of service to their customers, such as maintaining an average response time or providing a certain degree of throughput. Or, system managers can use the Workload Manager to guarantee a minimum percentage of the CPU to a set of users, or restrict them to a maximum percentage of the CPU.

With this release of MPE/iX, the traditional scheduling subqueues (AS, BS, CS, DS, and ES) are replaced by five system-defined workgroups. In addition, system managers can create additional user-defined workgroups for more discrete partitioning of the system workload. Specifically, you use the Workload Manager to determine:

You may partition the system into as many workgroups as needed to control the workload. The workgroups can correspond to one department within the company, such as Finance, or to a group of people performing the same kind of task, such as all data entry personnel updating one database. And, since you can observe the behavior of individual workgroups, the Workload Manager enables you to closely monitor system performance.

You can also implement a new workgroup configuration on the fly or at a predetermined time, for example, just before a shift change or to handle scheduled batch jobs. In this way, you can plan for anticipated workload changes and modify system behavior accordingly.

	NOTE: There is full programmatic support for the Workload Manager integrated into MPE/iX. For information about the Architected Interface calls available to you, consult the MPE/iX Architected Interface Facility: Operating System Reference Manual, part number 36374-90001.