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

5 Temporary Instant Capacity
This chapter covers the following topics:
• “Temporary Instant Capacity Overview” (page 55)
• “Ordering Temporary Instant Capacity” (page 56)
• “Using Temporary Instant Capacity” (page 57)
• “Temporary Capacity and Virtual Partitions” (page 58)
• “Tracking Usage of Temporary Instant Capacity” (page 59)
• “Temporary Instant Capacity Warning Period” (page 60)
• “Temporary Instant Capacity Expiration and Compliance Enforcement” (page 61)
• “Temporary Instant Capacity Exceptions” (page 61)
Temporary Instant Capacity Overview
You can purchase an amount of temporary capacity (TiCAP) time for inactive cores without usage
rights in your Instant Capacity system. Temporary capacity can be purchased in units of processing
days. Temporary capacity allows one or more inactive cores to be activated for up to the specified
period of prepaid processing time, without requiring permanent usage rights for the cores.
You can activate and deactivate inactive cores as necessary until the elapsed activation time equals
the duration of your prepaid temporary capacity. For example, with a prepaid duration of 30
days of temporary capacity, you can activate one core for 30 days or four cores for 1 hour a day
for 180 days (or any combination that totals 43,200 minutes).
Temporary capacity activations are persistent. This means that activations using temporary capacity
survive in a partition that is rebooted. You must deactivate cores to stop consumption of temporary
capacity. The cores you deactivate need not be on the same partition as those you activated to
start consuming temporary capacity.
NOTE: Temporary capacity credits can be used on any partition in the complex for which they
were purchased. Temporary capacity credits are not transferable from one system to another unless
the systems are in the same Global Instant Capacity group. For details of temporary capacity in
a GiCAP group, see Chapter 7.
If temporary capacity is depleted and you continue to have more active cores than core usage
rights across the complex, on the next reboot of any partition in the complex the software
automatically deactivates one or more cores in order to bring the system into a state closer to
compliance. The Instant Capacity software deactivates as many cores as necessary to either stop
consumption of temporary capacity or to bring the partition to the minimum number of required
active cores (one per active cell board).
IMPORTANT: Temporary capacity can be used to activate Instant Capacity cores on a temporary
basis only. It cannot be used to activate Instant Capacity cell boards or Instant Capacity memory.
Figure 12 illustrates the process of purchasing and applying temporary capacity.
Temporary Instant Capacity Overview 55