5 Chapter 5. Internal application workload balancing With internal application workload distribution, decisions for load balancing are made within the z/OS environment. The application workload balancing decision maker provided with the Communications Server is the Sysplex Distributor. Another option, the use of Shareport, is a method of workload distribution performed by the stack itself within a single z/OS system. This chapter describes internal application workload balancing and focuses primarily on the Sysplex Distributor function and the benefits that it provides. We also explain the use of Shareport in this chapter. This chapter discusses the following topics. Section Topic 5.1, "Basic concepts of internal application workload balancing" on page 124 5.2, "Sysplex Distributor" on page 125 5.3, "Sysplex Distributor examples" on page 145 5.4, "Port sharing" on page 176 5.5, "Problem determination" on page 184 Basic concepts of internal application workload balancing Description and available options for Sysplex Distributor Commonly implemented internal application workload balancing design scenarios Basic concepts of port sharing and its implementation Summary of useful NETSTAT commands and debugging approaches © Copyright IBM Corp. 2012. All rights reserved. 123