Using the Definition Menu

The definition menu is the central place for entering your service definition. When you set up a service definition, you must enter a service definition name and optionally, a description on the Definition Menu.

Figure 1 shows a sample Definition Menu with the service definition name and a description filled in.

Figure 1. Definition Menu panel

   File  Utilities  Notes  Options  Help
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Functionality LEVEL001         Definition Menu         WLM Appl LEVEL025
 Command ===> ______________________________________________________________

 Definition data set . . : none

 Definition name . . . . . ________  (Required)
 Description . . . . . . . ________________________________

 Select one of the
 following options.  . . . ___ 1.  Policies
                               2.  Workloads
                               3.  Resource Groups
                               4.  Service Classes
                               5.  Classification Groups
                               6.  Classification Rules
                               7.  Report Classes
                               8.  Service Coefficients/Options
                               9.  Application Environments
                              10.  Scheduling Environments
                              11.  Guest Platform Management Provider

When you define your service definition for the first time, you should define it in the following order:

1. Policies

A policy consists of a name, a description, and policy overrides. The first time you set up a service definition, define a policy name and description. If you do not have a business need to change your goals, you can run with one service policy, without any policy overrides.

You use a policy override only if you have a business need to change a goal for a certain time, such as for the weekend, or for nighttime. You can define your policy overrides once you have defined you service classes.

2. Workloads

A workload logically consists of a group of one or more service classes. You associate a workload with a service class in the Service Class panel. Enter your workloads before creating your service classes.

3. Resource groups (optional)

A resource group is a minimum or maximum amount of processing capacity. You associate a resource group with a service class in the Service Class panel. Enter resource groups before creating your service classes.

4. Service classes

A service class is a group of work with similar performance goals, resource requirements, or business importance. You make the association with a workload and a resource group in the service class panel. You associate a service class with incoming work in the classification rules panel. Enter service classes before creating classification rules.

Policy overrides: Once you have created a service class, you can create a policy override. You specify the policy override by selecting Service Policies from the Definition Menu, and then specifying the action code for Override service class or Override resource group.

5. Classification groups (optional)

You use groups to simplify classification. You associate a classification group with a service class in the classification rules panel. If you intend to use them, create groups before creating classification rules. See Defining classification rules for descriptions of group qualifiers.

6. Classification rules

Classification rules assign incoming work to service classes. Before you create your classification rules, you must understand which subsystem's work is represented in each of your service classes.

When you choose the option Classification Rules, you go to the Subsystem Type Selection List for Rules. This selection list is primed with all of the IBM-Supplied subsystem types. They are reserved names.

7. Report classes (optional)

A report class is a group of work for which you want reporting data. You do not have to define report classes before assigning them to work in classification rules. You can create them from within the classification rules menu.

8. Service coefficients/options

Service coefficients define the weight to be applied to one type of service over another in the calculation of service rates. You can enter new values for the CPU, IOC, MSO, and SRB service coefficients.

See Service definition coefficients for more information.

There are three additional options on this panel:

I/O Priority Management: The default is no, meaning that I/O priorities will be the same as dispatching priorities. Specifying yes means I/O priorities should be managed separately from dispatching priorities, according to the goals of the work. See Specifying I/O priority management for more information.
Enable I/O Priority Groups: The default is no, meaning that I/O priority groups are ignored. Specifying yes will cause workload management to consider I/O priority groups. Work in service classes assigned to I/O priority group HIGH always has higher I/O priority than work in service classes assigned to I/O priority group NORMAL. When you specify yes, you also need to specify yes for I/O Priority Management. See Enabling I/O priority groups for more information.
Dynamic Alias Management: The default is no, meaning that dynamic alias management is disabled for the entire sysplex. Specifying yes will cause workload management to dynamically reassign parallel access volume aliases to help work meet its goals and to minimize IOS queueing. See Specifying dynamic alias management for more information.

9. Application Environments

An application environment is a group of application functions invoked by request and executed in server address spaces. You can have workload management start and stop these server address spaces automatically, or do this manually or through automation. You define the application environment, an optional procedure name for starting the server address spaces, and any start parameters needed for the start procedure.

10. Scheduling Environments

A scheduling environment is a list of resource names along with their required states. By associating incoming work with a scheduling environment, you ensure that work is assigned to a system only if that system satisfies all of the requirements. You define the scheduling environment, listing all of the resource names and required states that are contained within. You also define the resource names themselves.

11. Guest Platform Management Provider (GPMP)

Starts the guest platform management provider (GPMP) to allow for performance management of zEnterprise® systems. For further information about the guest platform management provider, refer to Managing performance with the guest platform management provider (GPMP).