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

Instant Capacity Compliance and Enforcement
The Instant Capacity software primarily maintains complex-wide information about the usage
rights and activation of system components. The software monitors the number of usage rights
for the entire complex for each type of component. (If you are using Global Instant Capacity,
then the software also maintains group-wide information about usage rights. See Chapter 7 for
more information about GiCAP.)
The Instant Capacity software uses the debiting of Temporary Capacity to track the
non-compliance of a system, such as when there are more cores active than there are core usage
rights on the system, even if the system has had no Temporary Capacity applied to it. So,
temporary capacity can be negative even if temporary capacity has never been purchased or
applied; it means that the system has gone out of compliance. Also, if Temporary Capacity is
negative and the number of active cores exceeds the number of core usage rights for the complex,
at boot time automatic deactivation of cores may occur. This “boottime enforcement” applies to
all systems, whether or not temporary capacity has been applied.
The Instant Capacity software authorizes activation at will of cores, cells, and memory if allowed
by the system usage rights. You will not be allowed to activate additional components if that
action would take the system out of compliance.
For example, if your Instant Capacity contract specifies that your server contains 12 cores with
usage rights and 4 cores without usage rights, you may have up to 12 cores activated at any one
time, and 4 cores must be inactive at all times.
The Instant Capacity software can determine the following compliance aspects:
• Whether a system is in compliance or out of compliance with the Instant Capacity contract
• The number of additional cores that can be activated
• The number of additional cells and the quantity of memory that can be activated
The enforcement methods used by the software include:
• Not allowing activations which cause the system to be out of compliance
• Deactivating cores on boot
— Automatic deactivation of cores at boot time if temporary capacity has been exceeded
and the number of active cores continues to exceed the number of core usage rights for
the complex (see “Temporary Instant Capacity Expiration and Compliance Enforcement”
(page 82))
— In an integrated virtual partition environment, preventing a virtual partition from
booting if the number of assigned cores is greater than the number of intended active
cores for the nPartition (see “Boot Time Compliance” (page 181))
• On OpenVMS systems, the ICAP_SERVER dynamically deactivates active cores that exceed
the number of core usage rights for the complex
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