Using HP-UX Workload Manager: A quick reference

Within a single HP-UX instance, WLM enables you to allocate a fixed amount of CPU resources using:

• Portions of processors (FSS groups)

• Whole processors (pSets)

You can also allocate a fixed amount of CPU resources to virtual partitions and nPartitions. HP

recommends omitting from WLM management any partitions that should have a constant size. In such

cases, WLM’s capability of migrating CPU resources is not needed.

Portions of processors (FSS groups)

One method for providing a fixed amount of CPU resources is to set up an SLO to give a workload

group a portion of each available processor. To set up this type of SLO:

1. Define the workload group and assign a workload to it.

In your WLM configuration file, define your workload group in a prm structure using the groups

keyword. Assign a workload to the group using the apps keyword.

The following example defines a group named sales.

prm {

groups = sales : 2;

apps = sales : /opt/sales/bin/sales_monitor;

}

The sales_monitor application is placed in the sales workload group using the apps

statement. For other methods of placing a workload in a certain group, see the “How do I put an

application under HP-UX Workload Manager control?” section on page 13.

2. Define a fixed-allocation SLO for the workload group.

In the slo structure, use the cpushares keyword with total to request CPU resources for the

workload group. The following SLO requests 15 CPU shares for the workload group sales.

Based on SLO priorities and available CPU resources, WLM attempts to meet the request.

slo fixed_allocation_example {

pri = 2;

entity = PRM group sales;

cpushares = 15 total;

}

3. Activate the configuration:

# /opt/wlm/bin/wlmd -a config.wlm

where config.wlm is the name of your configuration file.

Whole processors (pSets)

Another method for providing a workload group with a fixed amount of CPU resources is to define the

group based on a pSet. If your system is running HP-UX 11i v1 (B.11.11), you can download

software (to support processor sets) from the following location:

http://www.hp.com/go/wlm

Select the “Patches/support” link and then search for “processor sets”.

Processor sets are included with HP-UX 11i v2 (B.11.23), 11i v3 (B.11.31), and later.

As in the previous case, the workload requires a constant amount of CPU resources. Placing the

workload in a workload group based on a pSet, the group has sole access to the processors in the

pSet.