HETEROGENEOUS WORKLOAD MANAGEMENT: BUSINESS WORKLOAD MANAGER PROTOTYPE Business Workload Manager (BWLM) Prototype is a technology that enables instrumentation of applications with Application Response Measurement (ARM) in order to monitor the performance of transactions across a distributed environment. This ARM-based performance information will be used by BWLM to monitor and adjust the allocation of computing resources on an ongoing, split-second basis. Planned functions include the ability of BWLM to detect changes in its environment and decide which resources (system, network, and load-balancing patterns) to adjust in order to enable a network of systems to meet end-to-end performance goals. When middleware (or, in this prototype, an application) is instrumented with ARM, it will be able to take advantage of products such as BWLM and participate in IBM's autonomic computing initiative. The prototype allows one to observe and build upon the instrumented application using the ARM 4.0 (preapproval version) standard to handle workload management for better transaction flow across systems and applications. This technology will provide significant value in understanding response times and transaction flow for the following: -
Improved service-level management based on performance policies. -
Determining where transactions hang. -
Active workload management for better capacity use. -
Understanding bottlenecks for better capacity planning. The prototype demonstrates instrumentation of an application (in this case, a PlantsByWebsphere EJB) using ARM APIs, which could otherwise have been achieved by instrumenting middleware, such as WebSphere. The use of service classes to define performance policies is also shown. In addition to the prototype, there is a BWLM demonstration (which was posted previously). The BWLM Demo includes a simulation of BWLM's administrative user interface, which is used to show how performance policies are set, to locate performance bottlenecks, and to see how the software optimizes workloads by reallocating resources. NOTE The goals of the demo are to communicate workload management concepts and to show some of the functionality planned for the product. Indeed, the BWLM Demo shows capabilities and functions that are not part of the prototype. The prototype is an example of instrumentation of an application so that it exploits a subset of BWLM capabilities.
How Does It Work? The preapproval ARM 4.0 standard supports both C and Java applications and will allow developers to instrument applications so that they collect performance data. This technology is intended to drive the first significant ARM instrumentation in commercial middleware. This basic prototype will feature the following: In the BWLM Demo, the user interface in no way reflects the look and feel of the user interface that will be provided with the actual product; the goals of the demo are to communicate workload management concepts and to show some of the functionality planned for the initial release. | 
