z/OS Workload Manager: Region and transaction goals

z/OS® Workload Manager can manage CICS® work towards a region goal or a transaction response time goal. You can choose which goal is used.

When you choose to manage towards a region goal, z/OS Workload Manager uses the goal for the service class assigned to the CICS address space under the JES or STC classification rules. When you choose to manage towards a transaction goal, z/OS Workload Manager uses the goals for the service classes assigned to transactions or groups of transactions under the CICS subsystem classification rules. You can select which mode to use when you are working with the JES or STC classification rules.

When you manage towards a transaction goal, z/OS Workload Manager does not directly manage resource allocations for the transactions. Instead, it makes calculations to assign appropriate resources to the CICS region or regions which can run the transactions. This can work less well if regions have a diverse mix of transactions and response time goals. In this situation, managing towards a region goal might work better.

Sometimes, the processing for a single work request requires more than one transaction in the CICS region. For example, up to four transactions, with different transaction identifiers, might be needed to process an inbound SOAP request in a CICS provider region. Take this into account when deciding whether to use a transaction goal or a region goal.