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

Integrated Virtual Partition Environment
Activation and Deactivation of Cores
When using vPars, the icapmodify command must be used to modify processing capacity
when you are making any adjustment to an nPartition or to multiple nPartitions:
• When you execute the icapmodify command to deactivate a core, a check is made to see
if the request can be satisfied. If so, the local hard partition’s intended active number is
decreased and the appropriate number of cores are removed from the local virtual partition.
• When you execute the icapmodify command to activate a core, a check is made to see if
the request can be satisfied. If so, the local hard partition’s intended active number is increased
and the appropriate number of cores are added to the local virtual partition.
If you are adjusting core assignments across virtual partitions in a single nPartition, you use the
vparmodify command for the best coordination between the Instant Capacity software and the
vPars software, and for optimized performance. The vparmodify command is the fastest and
most efficient way to adjust capacity within virtual partitions of a single hard partition, but it
does not affect the intended active count for the nPartition and it therefore cannot be used to
migrate unused capacity either to or from other nPartitions:
• When you execute the vparmodify command to deactivate a core, there is no authorization
required from the Instant Capacity software.
• When you execute the vparmodify command to activate a core, it checks with the Instant
Capacity software to determine how many cores are available for activation. This number
is calculated as the difference between the local hard partition’s intended active number
and the total number of cores assigned to the vPars database. If enough cores are available
to meet the request, the proper number of cores are added to the local virtual partition.
Whether you are activating or deactivating cores, the icapmodify command adjusts only the
number of dynamic cores, and it does not explicitly identify specific cores.
Boot Time Compliance
In the integrated virtual partition environment, a compliance check is performed whenever a
virtual partition is booted. If the total number of cores assigned to all virtual partitions in the
current vPar database exceeds the nPartition’s intended active core count, the Instant Capacity
software notifies the vPar monitor, and the monitor prevents any virtual partition from booting
until the user performs a hard partition boot and modifies either the vPar configuration or the
Instant Capacity intended active count for the nPartition.
Example A-2 vPar Boot Time Compliance Message
To: [e-mail]
Subject: vPar Boot Time Compliance
This message is being sent to inform you that a vpar is not
being allowed to boot because doing so would take this complex
out of compliance from an Instant Capacity perspective. The
number of cores assigned to this vPar database (/stand/vpdb)
exceeds the number of intended active cores by 1. To correct
this problem, boot this partition back into an nPartition and
modify the vPars assigned to this database or modify the number
of intended active cores for this nPartition.
Temporary Capacity and Virtual Partitions
If temporary capacity is being consumed in any virtual partition environment (having been
previously authorized using icapmodify -a n -t), deactivating a core with the vparmodify
command temporarily reduces the consumption of temporary capacity. A subsequent core
activation using vparmodify increases consumption of temporary capacity, assuming that this
activation results in there being more active cores than available core usage rights. Use
Instant Capacity Integration with Virtual Partitions (HP-UX only) 181