A method, system and program product for monitoring resources servicing a business transaction is provided. The method includes providing a transaction manager that monitors a business transaction serviced by one or more resources, with each of the resources and the transaction manager having a protocol stack configured to send and receive load-monitoring headers in protocol messages. The method further includes specifying, in a protocol request header in a protocol request message, collection of performance metrics for a resource, collecting, by the resources, the performance metrics specified in the protocol request message and sending the performance metrics collected to the transaction manager, in a protocol response header in a protocol response message. Further, the method includes pre-configuring with policies the protocol stack on a subset of the resources, such that the pre-configured resources can act as monitoring agents on behalf of peer resources and send alerts to a resource manager.