Establishing a workload

The criteria used to identify a workload are based on the information provided by a workload specification, one or more workload definitions and their optional transaction groups, and one or more workload groups.

  • A workload specification identifies the CICS® systems or CICS system groups in a CICSplex that are to be treated as routing regions and the default target regions. You can also use a workload specification to identify a default affinity relationship and lifetime.
    A CICS region can be associated with none, or one, workload specification (WLMSPEC). For the CICS region to be a CICSPlex SM routing region, it must be associated with a workload. For the CICS region to be a CICSPlex SM target region, it depends on the type of routing being used:
    • For dynamic routing, the target region is not associated with a workload (WLMSPEC). The target region can be a target for one or more workloads.
    • For distributed routing, the target region must be associated with a workload (WLMSPEC). The target region can be a target for one workload.

    If you currently use only dynamic routing, it is advisable that a target region is a target for only one workload. This simplifies the situation if you decide to implement distributed routing later.

    The name of a workload specification becomes the name of the workload itself.

  • A workload definition includes specific or generic terminal and user names, or a specific or generic process type, that are used when attempting to match a transaction occurrence to a workload definition. It also identifies the target region to which transaction occurrences matching the criteria are to be routed.
  • A transaction group identifies one or more related transaction identifiers and indicates whether the terminal id or the user id specified in the workload definition is to be used as the primary selection criterion in determining which transactions are to be routed to the set of target regions identified in the workload definition. A transaction group is also used to define affinities.
  • A workload group is a collection of workload definitions that are to be treated as a single entity.
Note: When no workload definitions are installed in a workload, all transactions and programs are routed to a target region in the default target scope identified by the workload specification. However, when a workload definition is installed in a workload, all transactions and programs that match the criteria in that workload definition are routed to a target region in the target scope identified by the definition itself. A dynamic routing request that is not associated with any workload definition is routed to a target region in the default target scope of the workload specification.