HP Instant Capacity (iCAP) Creating Global Instant Capacity Groups, Example 7-2 Creating a Group

Creating Global Instant Capacity Groups

After the sharing rights codeword and the grouping rules have been applied to the Group Manager, a GiCAP group can be created by issuing the icapmanage command using the -a, -g, and -moptions. Use the -aoption to add members, the -goption to select the group name, and the -moption to specify a name for the new member along with a list of hosts running on the system. The list of hosts must include at least one host per nPartition or virtual partition on the system.

Note that a single partition of a complex cannot join a GiCAP group; rather you must specify all partitions of a complex when adding a group member. All partitions on a group member must be running HP-UX. An Instant Capacity server can join a group if the Group Manager has at least as many GiCAP sharing rights as the total number of cores without usage rights on that server. Members can be added to a GiCAP group as long as there are sufficient GiCAP sharing rights available and it is permitted by the grouping rules. Each member that joins the group decreases the available GiCAP sharing rights by the number of cores without usage rights contributed by that member complex.

Although the size of GiCAP groups is not specifically restricted, performance of group-related functions is affected by the number of group members and the number of partitions for each member server, as well as by the types of hardware involved. A larger number of group members can cause an increase in startup time for the Group Manager and can also affect the performance of icapmodify commands when a transfer of usage rights occurs. If temporary capacity is being used, then the size of the group may also increase the amount of communication time needed for tracking of temporary capacity.

When adding groups to a Group Manager system, you can use the icapmanage -Tcommand to test hardware compatibility for one or more host systems in order to determine which groups the systems can join. When used in combination with the -goption to specify a group name, this command tests whether the specified host systems have hardware that is compatible with the group. Without the -goption, this command reports which groups of all the groups managed by this Group Manager have hardware which is compatible with the host systems. The host names do not have to be from the same complex, but in order to best predict the possibility of being able to join a group, the list of hosts should include all the nPartitions for a particular complex. If the hosts are not compatible with each other, no groups are reported as having compatible hardware.

You can create multiple GiCAP groups that can be managed by the same Group Manager or by different Group Manager systems. Systems with no any Instant Capacity components can be part of a GiCAP group. Deactivating resources on these systems allows them to loan usage rights to other members in the group.

Example 7-2shows how to create a group and show group status.

Example 7-2 Creating a Group

>icapmanage -a -g one

Group one added.

>icapmanage -s

Software		version:	B.09.00
32 GiCAP		Sharing Rights: 0 in use,		32 available
Group	ID: one
Group	Members:
		No members found

Example 7-3updates the grouping rules for all groups managed by the Group Manager, tests whether a server complex has hardware compatible with group “one”, and adds a member called

Creating Global Instant Capacity Groups 109