User's Manual

Instant Capacity Components
Overview
The Instant Capacity software monitors and enforces compliance with contractual agreements.
It authorizes or denies activation of system components (cores, cells, memory) based on a
complexwide database of usage rights. For details about acquiring additional usage rights, see
“Usage Rights Requirement” (page 31).
Activation of components is restricted according to complexwide compliance for each component
type. A complex is in a compliant state when the number of active components of a given type
does not exceed the number of that component’s available usage rights on the complex.
Processors and Cores
Although you purchase Instant Capacity processors for your system, the Instant Capacity software
monitors and manages the total number of cores. For example, if you have a dual-core Instant
Capacity processor, two cores must remain inactive on the complex.
The Instant Capacity software enforces compliance for cores by comparing the actual number
of inactive cores with the expected number of inactive cores (the number of cores without usage
rights) for the entire complex, according to the contract with HP. Available core usage rights can
be used to activate any core in an active cell board. Note also that temporary capacity can be
used to activate cores beyond the number of available core usage rights for the complex, but
only for a limited period of time.
NOTE: Unless a system participates in a GiCAP group (see Chapter 7), usage rights are
complexwide (single node for OpenVMS) only. If components are moved from one complex to
another, the counts of allowable active and inactive components do not change for either complex.
In particular, the number of “expected inactive” components of each type does not change if
components are removed. This means that the removal of inactive components from a complex
can cause that complex to be out of compliance with the Instant Capacity contract because there
are fewer visible inactive components than the complex-wide count of components without
usage rights. The complex might even become unusable if, for example, enough other cores must
be made inactive to meet compliance resulting in insufficient active cores to have at least one
active core per configured cell.
Cell Boards and Memory
Instant Capacity offers you a way to have additional (inactive) cell-board capacity in your system
for growing business needs. When the need arises, these cell boards, which contain memory and
cores, are available for instant activation and use after reboot or cell online activation when
additional cell-board usage rights are purchased from HP and an RTU codeword is applied. As
with cores, the Instant Capacity software enforces compliance by comparing the number of actual
inactive cells with the expected number of inactive cells (the number of cells without usage rights
for the entire complex).
The cell-board, memory, and core usage rights are tracked separately. To activate an Instant
Capacity cell, you must acquire sufficient cell usage rights, as well as sufficient memory usage
rights to enable all the memory attached to the cell. You cannot activate a cell board without
activating all attached memory, so when you purchase an RTU for a cell you need to purchase
an RTU for the cell’s memory. These are normally bundled together in a single purchase.
Depending on the need, you might want to activate one or more cores at the same time the cell
and memory are activated, so you might also need to acquire additional core usage rights. After
a cell board is activated, all of the cores on the cell board are available for activation if the complex
has enough available core usage rights or temporary capacity. Since usage rights for all types of
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