Chapter 3: Characterize Workloads › Define Transaction Families

Define Transaction Families

After you define the transaction workload definitions in the parameters file, you can group transaction workload definitions together into a transaction family. The family name is a convenient and concise way of specifying a collection of transaction workload definitions. Grouping the workload definitions into a family is essential because it is a family name that you specify when the workload definitions are used in reporting, graphing, and archiving.

During installation, Performance Agent provides a default transaction family, MODEL_TRANSACTIONS, which you cannot delete from the parameter file. Following is a list of the workload definitions of this family:

• SYSMAN
• COMPILES
• UTILITIES
• EDITORS
• NETWORK
• OTHER (generated during use of a family)

The appendix The Default Workload Families contains the lists of the images included within each of these workload definitions.

The following Parameter Editor examples define new transaction families:

1. To define a new transaction family, MY_TRANSACTIONS, which includes the WRITER_EDITS and DB_UPDATES transaction workload definitions, enter:

   PSDC-EDIT> ADD/FAMILY MY_TRANSACTIONS/WORKLOAD=-
   _PSDC-EDIT> (WRITER_EDITS,DB_UPDATES)
   

2. To add your new workload definitions to the default transaction family, MODEL_TRANSACTIONS, enter:

   PSDC-EDIT> MODIFY/FAMILY MODEL_TRANSACTIONS/ADDWORKLOAD=-
   _PSDC-EDIT> (WRITER_EDITS,DB_UPDATES)
   

The order in which you specify the workload definitions is important when defining a transaction family. Performance Agent allocates process resource use to the various transaction workloads on a first-match basis. For example, if you specify image EDT in both workload definitions UTILITIES and WRITER_EDITS, all resource use of the image EDT falls into the WRITER_EDITS transaction workload definition because it is listed first in the MY_TRANSACTIONS transaction family.

However, if the MODEL_TRANSACTIONS transaction family is used, all resource use of the image EDT falls into the UTILITIES transaction workload definition because workload definitions added to families are placed at the end of the current list of workload definitions in the family. The resource use is not split between the two workloads. If you create workload definitions that overlap, specify the workload definition with the more specific matching criteria before the workload definition with the more general matching criteria.

Besides the workload definitions specified, all transaction families contain another workload definition: OTHER. This definition is generated during the processing of any family. Any transaction activity not matching specified workload definitions is placed in OTHER.