HP Instant Capacity User's Guide for Version 9.x

7.6 Creating Global Instant Capacity Groups
After the sharing rights codeword and the grouping rules have been applied to the Group
Manager, a GiCAP group can be created by issuing the icapmanage command using the -a,
-g, and -m options. Use the -a option to add members, the -g option to select the group name,
and the -m option to specify a name for the new member along with a list of hosts running on
the system. The list of hosts must include at least one host per nPartition or virtual partition on
the system.
Note that a single partition of a complex cannot join a GiCAP group; rather you must specify all
partitions of a complex when adding a group member. All partitions on a group member must
be running HP-UX or OpenVMS. An Instant Capacity server can join a group if the Group
Manager has at least as many GiCAP sharing rights as the total number of cores without usage
rights on that server. Members can be added to a GiCAP group as long as there are sufficient
GiCAP sharing rights available and it is permitted by the grouping rules. Each member that joins
the group decreases the available GiCAP sharing rights by the number of cores without usage
rights contributed by that member complex.
Although the size of GiCAP groups is not specifically restricted, performance of group-related
functions is affected by the number of group members and the number of partitions for each
member server, as well as by the types of hardware involved. A larger number of group members
can cause an increase in startup time for the Group Manager and can also affect the performance
of icapmodify commands when a transfer of usage rights occurs. If temporary capacity is being
used, then the size of the group may also increase the amount of communication time needed
for tracking of temporary capacity.
When adding groups to a Group Manager system, you can use the icapmanage -T command
to test hardware compatibility for one or more host systems in order to determine which groups
the systems can join. When used in combination with the -g option to specify a group name,
this command tests whether the specified host systems have hardware that is compatible with
the group. Without the -g option, this command reports which groups of all the groups managed
by this Group Manager have hardware which is compatible with the host systems. The host
names do not have to be from the same complex, but in order to best predict the possibility of
being able to join a group, the list of hosts should include all the nPartitions for a particular
complex. If the hosts are not compatible with each other, no groups are reported as having
compatible hardware.
You can create multiple GiCAP groups that can be managed by the same Group Manager or by
different Group Manager systems. Systems with no any Instant Capacity components can be
part of a GiCAP group. Deactivating resources on these systems allows them to loan usage rights
to other members in the group.
Example 7-2 shows how to create a group and show group status.
Example 7-2 Creating a Group
> icapmanage -a -g one
Group one added.
> icapmanage -s
Software version: B.09.00
32 GiCAP Sharing Rights: 0 in use, 32 available
Group ID: one
Group Members:
No members found
Example 7-3 updates the grouping rules for all groups managed by the Group Manager, tests
whether a server complex has hardware compatible with group “one”, and adds a member called
7.6 Creating Global Instant Capacity Groups 107