Table of Contents

Overview of the Cisco Workload Agent for OS/390

The Cisco Workload Agent for OS/390 is the component of the Cisco MultiNode Load Balancing (MNLB) feature set that runs on an OS/390 host.

The Cisco Workload Agent for OS/390 supports MNLB as follows:

• The IBM Workload Manager (WLM) provides OS/390 system capacity information to the Cisco Workload Agent for OS/390.

• The Cisco Workload Agent for OS/390 uses TCP to pass the OS/390 system capacity information to the Services Manager (the Cisco LocalDirector). The Cisco Workload Agent for OS/390 supports the IBM TCP/IP stack and the Sterling/IOS390 TCP/IP stack.

• The Services Manager uses the OS/390 system capacity information to distribute incoming TCP connection requests and UDP packets among the available hosts, balancing the workload.

Invoking multiple Cisco Workload Agent for OS/390s can provide Agent-to-Services Manager backup capability, providing continuous coverage in the event that one Agent fails.

The components of an MNLB system are as follows:

• Services Manager---makes workload balancing decisions

• Forwarding Agent---sets up connections according to the Services Manager

• Workload Agents---provide feedback to the Services Manager

• Backup Services Manager---provides redundancy for the Services Manager

Figure 1-1 shows the relationship of these components to each other.

Figure 1-1: Components of an MNLB System

Posted: Wed Mar 22 11:32:46 PST 2000
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