HP Instant Capacity (iCAP) manual Instant Capacity Components, Overview, Processors and Cores

Instant Capacity Components

Overview

The Instant Capacity software monitors and enforces compliance with contractual agreements. It authorizes or denies activation of system components (cores, cells, memory) based on a complexwide database of usage rights. For details about acquiring additional usage rights, see “Usage Rights Requirement” (page 31).

Activation of components is restricted according to complexwide compliance for each component type. A complex is in a compliant state when the number of active components of a given type does not exceed the number of that component’s available usage rights on the complex.

Processors and Cores

Although you purchase Instant Capacity processors for your system, the Instant Capacity software monitors and manages the total number of cores. For example, if you have a dual-core Instant Capacity processor, two cores must remain inactive on the complex.

The Instant Capacity software enforces compliance for cores by comparing the actual number of inactive cores with the expected number of inactive cores (the number of cores without usage rights) for the entire complex, according to the contract with HP. Available core usage rights can be used to activate any core in an active cell board. Note also that temporary capacity can be used to activate cores beyond the number of available core usage rights for the complex, but only for a limited period of time.

NOTE: Unless a system participates in a GiCAP group (see Chapter 7), usage rights are complexwide (single node for OpenVMS) only. If components are moved from one complex to another, the counts of allowable active and inactive components do not change for either complex. In particular, the number of “expected inactive” components of each type does not change if components are removed. This means that the removal of inactive components from a complex can cause that complex to be out of compliance with the Instant Capacity contract because there are fewer visible inactive components than the complex-wide count of components without usage rights. The complex might even become unusable if, for example, enough other cores must be made inactive to meet compliance resulting in insufficient active cores to have at least one active core per configured cell.

Cell Boards and Memory

Instant Capacity offers you a way to have additional (inactive) cell-board capacity in your system for growing business needs. When the need arises, these cell boards, which contain memory and cores, are available for instant activation and use after reboot or cell online activation when additional cell-board usage rights are purchased from HP and an RTU codeword is applied. As with cores, the Instant Capacity software enforces compliance by comparing the number of actual inactive cells with the expected number of inactive cells (the number of cells without usage rights for the entire complex).

The cell-board, memory, and core usage rights are tracked separately. To activate an Instant Capacity cell, you must acquire sufficient cell usage rights, as well as sufficient memory usage rights to enable all the memory attached to the cell. You cannot activate a cell board without activating all attached memory, so when you purchase an RTU for a cell you need to purchase an RTU for the cell’s memory. These are normally bundled together in a single purchase.

Depending on the need, you might want to activate one or more cores at the same time the cell and memory are activated, so you might also need to acquire additional core usage rights. After a cell board is activated, all of the cores on the cell board are available for activation if the complex has enough available core usage rights or temporary capacity. Since usage rights for all types of

Instant Capacity Components 33