Terminology for workload management

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Common terms associated with workload management are listed and described in this table.

Item Description
class A class is a collection of processes and their associated threads. A class has a single set of resource-limitation values and target shares. class is used to describe both subclasses and super classes.
superclass A superclass is a class that has subclasses associated with it. No processes can belong to a superclass without also belonging to a subclass. A super class has a set of class-assignment rules that determines which processes are assigned to the superclass. A super class also has a set of resource-limitation values and resource target shares that determines the amount of resources that can be used by processes which belong to the superclass. These resources are divided among the subclasses based on the resources limitation values and resource target shares of the subclasses.
subclasses A subclass is a class associated with exactly one superclass. Every process in a subclass is also a member of its superclass. Subclasses have access only to resources that are available to the superclass. A subclass has a set of class assignment rules that determines which of the processes assigned to the superclass belong to the subclass. A subclass also has a set of resource-limitation values and resource target shares that determines the resources that can be used by processes in the subclass.

These resource-limitation values and resource target shares indicate how much of the resources available to the superclass (the target for the superclass) can be used by processes in the subclass.

WLM administration can be done using SMIT, or the WLM command-line interface.
classification mechanism A classification mechanism is a set of class assignment rules that determines which processes are assigned to which classes (super classes or subclasses within super classes).
class assignment rule A class assignment rule indicates which values within a set of process attributes result in a process being assigned to a particular class (superclass or subclass within a superclass).
process attribute value A process attribute value is the value that a process has for a process attribute. The process attributes can include attributes such as user ID, group ID, and application path name.
resource-limitation values Resource-limitation values are a set of values that WLM maintains for a set of resource utilization values. These limits are completely independent of the resource limits specified with the setrlimit subroutine.
resource target share Resource target shares are the shares of a resource that are available to a class (subclass or superclass). These shares are used with other class shares (subclass or superclass) at the same level and tier to determine the desired distribution of the resources between classes at that level and tier.
resource-utilization value A resource-utilization value is the amount of a resource that a process or set of processes is currently using in a system. Whether it is one process or a set of processes is determined by the scope of process resource collection.
scope-of-resource collection The scope-of-resource collection is the level at which resource utilization is collected and the level at which resource-limitation values are applied. This might be at the level of each process in a class, the level of the sum across every process in a class owned by each user, or the level of the sum across every process in a class. The only scope currently supported is the latter.
process class properties The process class properties are the set of properties that are given to a process based on the classes (subclass and superclass) to which it is assigned.
class authorizations The class authorizations are a set of rules that indicates which users and groups are allowed to perform operations on a class or processes and threads in a class. This includes the authorization to manually assign processes to a class or to create subclasses of a superclass.
class tier The class tier value is the position of the class within the hierarchy of resource limitation desirability for all classes. The resource limits (including the resource targets) for all classes in a tier are satisfied before any resource is provided to lower tier classes. Tiers are provided at both the superclass and subclass levels. Resources are provided to super classes based on their tiers. Within a superclass, resources are given to subclasses based on their tier values within the superclass. Thus, superclass tier is the major differentiator in resource distribution; the subclass tier provides an additional smaller differentiator within a superclass.