6.1.2 Workload management

IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment workload management optimizes the distribution of incoming requests between application servers that are able to handle a client request. WebSphere workload management is based on application server clusters containing multiple application servers, so-called cluster members. An application deployed to a cluster runs on all cluster members concurrently. The workload is distributed based on weights that are assigned to each cluster member. Thus, more powerful machines can be configured to receive more requests than smaller systems.

Should an application server fail in the cluster, workload management (WLM) can also manage to failover existing client requests to another available cluster member.

In addition, WLM enables servers to be transparently maintained and upgraded while applications remain available for users. You can add additional cluster members to a cluster at any point, providing scalability and performance if an existing environment is not able to handle the workload any more. For more details, see 6.2, WebSphere workload management defined.

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