HP Instant Capacity for HP Integrity Superdome 2 Servers

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HP Instant Capacity for HP Integrity

Superdome 2 Servers

White paper

Table of contents

Executive summary ............................................................................................................................... 2

HP iCAP terminology ........................................................................................................................ 2

Using HP iCAP .................................................................................................................................... 5

Setting up HP iCAP .......................................................................................................................... 6

No e-mail requirement for HP iCAP .................................................................................................... 6

Immediate activation of HP iCAP components ...................................................................................... 6

Testing and evaluating HP iCAP ......................................................................................................... 6

Benefits of HP iCAP .......................................................................................................................... 7

No expiration of HP iCAP ................................................................................................................. 7

System and application software licenses ............................................................................................ 7

Warranty ........................................................................................................................................ 7

Moving iCAP resources among servers ............................................................................................... 8

Configuring servers with multiple partitions ......................................................................................... 8

HP iCAP for high availability and disaster recovery .............................................................................. 8

Acquiring HP iCAP resources ................................................................................................................ 9

Activating HP iCAP resources .............................................................................................................. 10

Activating multiple core processors ................................................................................................... 10

Accessing the Utility Pricing Solutions portal ...................................................................................... 11

Temporarily activating and deactivating HP iCAP cores with HP TiCAP or HP IAC ..................................... 13

Adding HP IAC to an HP iCAP system .............................................................................................. 14

Adding HP TiCAP to an HP iCAP system ........................................................................................... 14

Deactivating cores.......................................................................................................................... 14

Monitoring instant access and temporary capacity usage ................................................................... 15

Sharing usage rights .......................................................................................................................... 15

Creating an HP GiCAP group .......................................................................................................... 15

Transferring usage rights between members of a GiCAP group ........................................................... 16

Sharing HP TiCAP .......................................................................................................................... 16

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 17

Summary of content (17 pages)

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HP Instant Capacity for HP Integrity Superdome 2 Servers White paper Table of contents Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 2 HP iCAP terminology ........................................................................................................................ 2 Using HP iCAP .......................................................................................................................
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Executive summary This paper describes the HP Instant Capacity (iCAP) program for HP Integrity Superdome 2 servers. It provides an overview of the iCAP offerings and describes how the program works. A successful iCAP implementation involves both technology and operations. In addition, to the product offerings, the paper also discusses organizational and functional issues that will assist in a successful iCAP implementation.
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HP Superdome 2 blades come with both sockets fully populated. An iCAP blade is one which has two iCAP quad-core processors that is eight iCAP processor cores. RTU is available at a processor-level that is four cores at a time. However, once a processor RTU is purchased, the four cores can be turned on one or all at a time. Due to the dynamic nature of iCAP, the cores turned on are not limited to one processor. Memory on an iCAP cell blade can be all active or all iCAP.
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HP Global Instant Capacity GiCAP extends the value of iCAP by allowing usage rights for iCAP cores to be moved among a group of servers.
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Using HP iCAP As mentioned in the previous sections, acquiring and using iCAP resources is a two-step process, whereby an iCAP system is purchased and installed or a regular system is upgraded with iCAP components. In either case, the iCAP resources are onsite—in the user’s system—inactive, but ready for use. When the iCAP resources are needed, the appropriate RTUs are purchased and the components are activated.
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• The iCAP system manager that is responsible for the iCAP operations and is the primary recipient of iCAP notifications from the system. • No codewords are involved in the iCAP system management process for HP Superdome 2 servers. However, all actions on the iCAP portal—HP Utility Pricing Solutions portal will be similar to the operations for HP Integrity Mid-range and Superdome servers. • Compliance with iCAP contract is enforced through iCAP Terms and Conditions. Setting up HP iCAP 1.
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Benefits of HP iCAP With iCAP, customers can preinstall reserve capacity in the form of blades and memory that can be used for future system expansion when the system’s environment experiences rapid and unexpected growth in its workload. The cost to have the reserve capacity installed is just a fraction of its regular purchase price, and when the remainder of the regular purchase price is paid, the reserve capacity can be activated. Other major benefits of using the iCAP program are summarized in Table 3.
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Moving iCAP resources among servers Inactivated iCAP physical components (iCAP blades or memory) cannot be removed from the iCAP system in which they are installed. However, iCAP cores can effectively be “moved” between partitions within a server by moving the usage rights for those cores. This is accomplished by deactivating cores in one partition and activating iCAP cores in another partition. This method cost-effectively balances application workload among partitions.
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Acquiring HP iCAP resources iCAP components can be acquired as part of the initial system purchase, added to an iCAP system (a server that was ordered and installed with iCAP components), or added to a non-iCAP system (a server that was ordered and installed with no iCAP components).
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Activating HP iCAP resources The second step of iCAP acquisition and use process is the activation of the iCAP components. This chapter discusses the permanent activation process. See the “Temporarily activating and deactivating HP Instant Capacity cores with HP Temporary Instant Capacity or HP Instant Access Capacity” section on page 13 for information on the process for temporary activation.
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Accessing the Utility Pricing Solutions portal Information on iCAP orders is located at http://www.hp.com/go/icap/portal. As shown in Figure 5, there are links in the iCAP section for: • Get iCAP order details • Create codewords • List codewords For the initial release of the iCAP software on HP Superdome 2, the portal will be used for inventory management rather than codewords.
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Get iCAP order details In Figure 5, when clicked on “Get iCAP order details”, the link provides a list of iCAP components for a specific purchase order, the history of iCAP order items for a specific server, and the available order items that require inventory management. This information is especially useful for orders that have several iCAP components. This background information can provide a baseline for smooth Instant Capacity operation.
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List codewords The link provides a list of all the codewords that have been created for a specified system serial number. It also indicates if no codewords have been created. However, this link will not work with HP Superdome 2 serial numbers as there are no codewords involved in this release. The functionality will be available at a later release.
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Adding HP IAC to an HP iCAP system 1. If iCAP cores are not installed on the system, order the appropriate quantity of iCAP blades. To use IAC, a system must have iCAP cores installed. 2. Before IAC is used it is recommended that the user apply the IAC to the server using the “Check for IAC link” on the Utility Pricing Solutions portal. 3. Use the iCAP commands to distribute the IAC to the appropriate partitions (see the current Instant Capacity user’s guide). Adding HP TiCAP to an HP iCAP system 1.
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Monitoring instant access and temporary capacity usage TiCAP and IAC days are combined in each partition and only one balance is kept, which is called the TiCAP balance. The iCAP software calculates when the balance of temporary capacity will expire based on the current consumption rate. When the balance reaches a residual of 15 days or less (this parameter can be set by the user), an e-mail message is automatically sent to the iCAP system manager, if specified, and the root system manager.
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Transferring usage rights between members of a GiCAP group The transfer of usage rights between members of a group is easily accomplished by: 1. Determining the amount of usage to move and the source and destination quantity of cores that must be activated 2. Deactivating the cores on the one system using any capacity altering commands (see the current Instant Capacity user’s guide) 3.
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Conclusion HP iCAP is a powerful tool that matches compute resources to application loads in a dynamic manner, which saves money and provides a fast response to changing business requirements. It features blades and memory iCAP, as well as the extremely flexible and cost-effective HP TiCAP and uniquely flexible HP GiCAP. iCAP provides excellent customer benefits, such as cost savings and a higher level of IT capabilities, to meet demanding business challenges.