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

Each of these versions provides a virtual partition environment which is tightly integrated with
Instant Capacity, making it less likely for a complex to be misconfigured or to violate contractual
compliance.
The Instant Capacity software must be installed on all virtual partitions in an Instant Capacity system.
For details about virtual partitions, see the Installing and Managing HP-UX Virtual Partitions manual
on the Business Support Center (BSC) website:
www.hp.com/go/hpux-vpars-docs
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 23).
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
24 Getting Started