HP Instant Capacity Version 10.x User Guide (5900-1581, March 2011)

GiCAP Group Manager
For each group, an HP-UX system must be designated as an active Global Instant Capacity Group
Manager. It is this system that maintains information about the group, group resources, and grouping
rules. The icapmanage commands are intended to be used only on a Group Manager system to
manage one or more GiCAP groups.
The active Group Manager must be an HP-UX system running the Instant Capacity software version
9.0 or later. The system running the Group Manager does not need to have any Instant Capacity
components, nor does it need to be a partitionable system. The system must have a
machine-readable serial number, as displayed by the shell command getconf
CS_MACHINE_SERIAL. It is recommended that the Group Manager not be on a partition that is
a member of any GiCAP group, and that it manages a single group. If run on a partitionable
system, changing the configuration of the partitions may result in the GiCAP Manager becoming
inoperative.
Standby GiCAP Group Manager
The active GiCAP Group Manager can designate a standby Group Manager. This standby Group
Manager can take control of GiCAP group management from the active Group Manager using
the command icapmanage -Q. This allows GiCAP group operations to continue if the GiCAP
Group Manager is unable to function.
Note that the requirements and recommendations defined for the Group Manager also apply to
the standby Group Manager; it is a Group Manager with “standby” status. The Group Manager
in charge of the group has “active” status. If the standby Group Manager takes control, the intention
is that its status becomes “active” and the former Group Manager's status becomes “standby”. For
more details, see the “Group Manager Failover Considerations” section.
GiCAP Group Members
Every operating system on a GiCAP group member must be running Instant Capacity version 9.0
or later. Every GiCAP group member must be hardware-compatible with other GiCAP group
members as determined by the GiCAP grouping rules.
GiCAP Grouping Rules
Once you have determined which system will host the active Group Manager, you must acquire
grouping rules from the portal and install the encrypted file on the active Group Manager system
using the icapmanage -i command. Under some circumstances (for example, when adding
new hardware not covered by the grouping rules currently in use), you might need to acquire
newer grouping rules from the portal.
GiCAP Sharing Rights
To create a GiCAP group with members, you must purchase GiCAP sharing rights, acquire the
GiCAP codeword from the HP Utility Pricing Solutions portal (http://www.hp.com/go/icap/portal),
and apply the associated codeword to the active Group Manager system. You purchase at least
as many GiCAP sharing rights as the total number of cores without usage rights across all the
potential group members. Members can be added to a GiCAP group as long as sufficient sharing
rights are available, and as long as the grouping rules indicate hardware compatibility.
Unlike other iCAP codewords, GiCAP codewords must be generated for, and applied to, a specific
partition if the active Group Manager is on a partitionable system. This means that in order to
retrieve the codeword, you must specify the purchase order number, the system serial number and
partition information, if any. Use the icapmanage -s command on the active Group Manager
system to get the applicable serial number and nPar ID, or vPar code.
GiCAP codewords also have a sequence value and must be applied in the order in which they
were generated for the Group Manager system. However, GiCAP codewords are sequenced
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