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

• What are the critical failures to protect against? What is the scope of the required redundancy to
eliminate single points of failure?
• Is a fully redundant system cost-effective, or can Instant Capacity be used to help reduce total
ownership costs?
• Do you need to provide automation for the failover/failback of specific applications?
• What level of performance is required after a failover?
• Is additional processing capacity required after a failover to meet specific service-level objectives?
Instant Capacity for processor cores and cell boards
with memory
Instant Capacity enables you to purchase and install additional processing power using a two-step
purchase model:
1. Purchase system components (processors, cell boards, and memory) at a fraction of the regular
purchase price because the usage rights are not included. These iCAP components are inactive but
installed and ready for use.
2. Add extra capacity as needed by paying the remainder of the regular purchase price for the
usage rights to activate the components. If the regular price for the component has decreased, the
remainder price is proportionally reduced, providing additional savings.
When there is a mixture of active and inactive processors in a partition, the iCAP software activates
processor cores so that they are distributed as evenly as possible across the active cell boards of the
partition. Figure 2 shows an example with two cell boards.
Figure 2: Instant Capacity component example
The active cell board on the left contains active memory and four dual-core processors (eight cores).
Two of the processors are iCAP processors without usage rights. This results in four active cores and
four inactive cores without usage rights distributed across the active cell board. The iCAP cell board
on the right is inactive. It contains four iCAP dual-core processors (eight cores) and two iCAP memory
modules—all without usage rights. To take advantage of this inactive cell board, you must purchase
usage rights for the cell and memory (and possibly for some cores) or migrate usage rights from
another GiCAP group member (if any).
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