Cost-Effective High-Availability Solutions with HP Instant Capacity on HP-UX

• An nPartition must be unavailable for usage rights to be seized
Usage rights can only be seized if the partition is unavailable as determined by the ping command.
If a Serviceguard package needs to fail over for other reasons, then the script must account for those
possibilities. For example, if remote operations can still be performed on the active node, the script
can acquire usage rights directly by deactivating cores on the active partition.
• Partial server failure
If at the time of rights seizure at least one nPartition of the server is still running, then the software is
able to make an immediate adjustment to the available core usage rights, and the seized core
usage rights do not have an expiration date. However, because there are other nPartitions running
iCAP software, the unreachable partition may be assumed to be using all cores on cells configured
cells for that partition. This “assumed active” state may result in additional TiCAP consumption or
compliance exceptions unless the cells of the failed partition are made inactive. Cells can be made
inactive by removing them from the partition, shutting down the partition from within the OS by
using shutdown -R -H, or with the MP RR command. However, even if the cells are made
inactive, the iCAP software reserves usage rights to minimize the possibility that that complex will
be taken out of compliance if the failed partition is booted with all cores active. In this “assumed
reserved” state, additional activations may not be allowed on the still-running partitions. If the failed
partition cannot be rebooted and you need to continue doing activations on the other partitions,
you can delete the failed partition, or you can remove cells from the failed partition, or set the
UONB value false for cells in the failed partition, or perform activations authorizing temporary
capacity. TiCAP will not be charged as long as the number of active cores does not exceed the
number of core usage rights. Contact HP if none of these methods is possible.
• Seizure of usage rights in a vPars environment
When seizing usage rights from an nPartition that contains virtual partitions:
– All the virtual partitions must be down before rights seizure is allowed.
– You must restore the usage rights to the virtual partitions before they boot. Otherwise, you may
not be able to reboot certain virtual partitions, depending on the vPars partition database
definition and the allocation of usage rights among the virtual partitions. Perform the restoration
command (icapmanage -z) specifying any virtual partition of the nPartition from which rights
were seized. Failure to restore usage rights to the vPars before connecting to the GiCAP Group
Manager can leave them in a non-bootable state, requiring additional steps to fix the vPars
partition database before the virtual partitions can be booted. Accordingly, while automated
failover is possible in this environment, you should exercise caution.
• If there are multiple VM guests for the hard partition, they will all be affected by the reduction of
usage rights. In an HP Integrity Virtual Machines environment, you only specify rights seizure for the
VM Host, not the VM guests.
• You cannot run a Group Manager in a virtual machine.
• The active Group Manager must have network connectivity.
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