Introduction to DB2 workload management concepts

A good workload management system helps to efficiently meet goals in the environment where work occurs. You can see examples of the need for a good workload management system all around you.

For example, look at a grocery store. Different activities must be considered: serving customers, stocking shelves, maintaining inventories, and so on. And some simple goals must be set. Store owners want to maximize both the number of customers who move through the store, and the amount that customers purchase, achieving both goals in a way that customers leave both satisfied and wanting to come back. Store owners must also ensure that they have sufficient stock for their customers to buy (but not too much stock, because waste becomes an issue). Store owners also track what their customers purchase, and use this information to create advertisements that are designed to induce their customers to return. Monitoring mechanisms track inventory and send notifications when stocks run low. Security devices are in place to detect shoplifting. Special fast checkout lanes are created so that shoppers who only want to purchase a few items can do so without having to wait behind other customers who are purchasing many items. If all of these goals are met and all of these operational procedures work well, customers are satisfied, and are likely to return rather than to go to another store. These goals and operational procedures are all aspects of workload management.

In a data server environment, you can see even more of a need for effective management of work, especially now that data servers are being stressed like never before. Cash registers generate thousands of data inserts, reports are constantly being generated to determine whether sales targets are being met, batch applications run to load collected data, and administration tasks such as backups and reorganizations run to protect the data and make the server run optimally. All these operations are using the same database system and competing for the same resources.

To ensure the best chance of meeting goals for running a data server, an efficient workload management system is critical.