HP Instant Capacity User's Guide for Versions 8.x
Rights Seizure
Use the icapmanage -x command to acquire core usage rights from a specified host to make
them available to other group members, also known as rights seizure. The specified host must
be known to the GiCAP Group Manager (it appears in the output of icapmanage -s) and not
currently running. That and any other (vPar) hosts associated with the same hard partition are
verified to be unreachable by the GiCAP manager. The icapmanage -x command will check
with each known host on the hard partition. The hard partition containing the specified host will
be left with one core usage right per active cell. Any core usage rights in excess of this will become
available for use elsewhere in the GiCAP group.
GiCAP Disaster Recovery was introduced in Instant Capacity version 8.02.01, which enables the
distribution of core usage rights from a GiCAP member which is offline due to some disaster,
to other members of the group, and the restoration of usage rights to the member once contact
has been restored. The icapmanage -x command allows the transfer of usage rights from
group members which are completely unreachable. In the case of unavailable group members,
the transfer is limited to a specific time period of 10 days. The icapmanage -z command allows
you to restore previously seized core usage rights to a specified host.
The following example seizes core usage rights from a partition that is down, so that they will
be available for other group member activations.
icapmanage -x mypar1.node.corp.com
Effects of Rights Seizure
Rights seizure will take almost all the available usage rights from the hard partition containing
the specified host, leaving only enough usage rights to be able to boot (one core usage right for
each cell configured for use-on-next-boot (UONB)). The partition will have the value Intended
Active set to the required minimum (one core per configured cell) and the value Actual
Active set to zero. The number of core usage rights seized is equal to the difference between
the new value for Intended Active and the greater of the old values for Intended Active
and Actual Active. These seized core usage rights are available for use elsewhere in the
GiCAP group.
While rights can be seized from any hard partition that is unavailable, the Instant Capacity
software makes some additional restrictions when all partitions of a complex are unavailable.
As a result, there are different behaviors and constraints depending on whether or not there is
any partition which can be contacted on the specified member complex.
If at the time of rights seizure at least one member partition can be contacted, then the software
is able to make an immediate adjustment to the available core usage rights, just as if an
icapmodify -d operation had been performed before the specified hard partition stopped
running. This makes core usage rights available for potential loans to other member systems. In
this situation, the seized core usage rights do not have an expiration date. However, because
there are other member partitions running Instant Capacity software, the unreachable partition
may be assumed to be using all cores on cells configured for that partition. Because of this, cells
in partitions from which usage rights have been acquired should be rebooted or made inactive
within 12 hours. If this is not done, the partition may begin to consume temporary capacity. If
temporary capacity is not available, the complex may no longer be in compliance with the Instant
Capacity contract. Cells may 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.
If at the time of rights seizure all member partitions are unreachable, the rights seizure is
“deferred” and must be viewed as a limited and immediate “loan” of usage rights from the
specified partition to the group. This loan of seized usage rights will expire in 10 days. Upon
expiration, usage rights are automatically restored to the member partitions from which they
were seized. The expiration date for a rights seizure operation effectively terminates the period
during which the core usage rights are available to other group members for purposes of disaster
recovery. If none of the member partitions are reachable by the expiration date for a particular
116 Global Instant Capacity