HP Instant Capacity User's Guide for Versions 8.x

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
and -g options. Members are added by issuing the icapmanage command using the -a option,
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 on the system.
Note that a single partition of a complex cannot join a GiCAP group; all partitions of a complex
must be specified when adding a group member. An iCAP 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.
While 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 the types of hardware involved. A larger number of group members
can cause an increase in startup time for the Group Manager and may 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, the icapmanage -T command can be used
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, it
tests whether the specified host systems have hardware which is compatible with the group.
Without the -g option, it 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 will be reported as having compatible hardware.
You can create multiple GiCAP groups and they can be managed by the same Group Manager
or by different Group Manager systems. Systems which do not have 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.
The following example shows how to create a group and show group status:
Example 7-3 Creating a Group
> icapmanage -a -g one
Group one added.
> icapmanage -s
Software version: B.08.02
32 GiCAP Sharing Rights: 0 in use, 32 available
Group ID: one
Group Members:
No members found
The following example updates the grouping rules for all groups managed by the Group Manager,
tests if a server complex has hardware which is compatible with group “one”, and adds a member
called “IT” to that group. Note that when you first add new members to a group, you will be
104 Global Instant Capacity