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

Instant Capacity Compliance and Enforcement
The Instant Capacity software primarily maintains complexwide information about the usage rights
and activation of system components. The software monitors the number of usage rights for the
entire complex for each type of component. (If you are using Global Instant Capacity, the software
also maintains groupwide information about usage rights. For more information about GiCAP, see
Chapter 7.)
The Instant Capacity software uses the debiting of temporary capacity as a compliance enforcement
mechanism on the following systems:
• A system where TiCAP has been applied (the TiCAP balance is nonzero)
• A GiCAP group member system (or a system which had previously been a GiCAP group
member and has a nonzero TiCAP balance)
• A system which has had a TiCAP debit within the past 24 hours
If temporary capacity is negative, it means the system has gone out of compliance. Also, if the
temporary capacity balance is negative and the number of active cores exceeds the number of
core usage rights for the complex, automatic deactivation of cores might occur at boot time.
The Instant Capacity software authorizes activation of cores, cells, and memory if allowed by the
system usage rights. You cannot activate additional components if that action takes the system out
of compliance.
For example, if your Instant Capacity contract specifies that your server must contain 12 cores with
usage rights and 4 cores without usage rights, you can have up to 12 cores activated at any one
time, and 4 cores must be inactive at all times.
The Instant Capacity software can determine the following compliance aspects:
• Whether a system is in compliance or out of compliance with the Instant Capacity contract
• The number of additional cores that can be activated
• The number of additional cells and the quantity of memory that can be activated
The enforcement methods used by the software include:
• Not allowing activations that cause the system to be out of compliance
• Deactivating cores at boot time:
Automatically deactivate cores at boot time if temporary capacity is exceeded and the
number of active cores continues to exceed the number of core usage rights for the
◦
complex (see “Temporary Instant Capacity Expiration and Compliance Enforcement”
(page 61)).
◦ Prevents a virtual partition from booting if the number of assigned cores is greater than
the number of intended active cores for the nPartition (see “Boot Time Compliance”
(page 48)).
• For GiCAP members in a running (booted) virtual partition environment, if the number of
assigned cores is greater than the number of intended active cores, the icapmodify command
may be disallowed. In this case, to bring the vPar database into compliance, deactivate cores
using the vparmodify command.
• On OpenVMS systems, the ICAP_SERVER process dynamically deactivates active cores that
exceed the number of core usage rights for the complex.
Configuration Change Notification
Specifying an increase or decrease in the number of active cores (using the icapmodify command)
causes a core configuration change. An email notification is sent to the system contact when a
change occurs that affects the configuration of cores.
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