Global Instant Capacity Groups

For each group, an HP-UX system must be designated as the Global Instant Capacity Group Manager. It is this system which maintains information about the group, group resources, and the grouping rules. icapmanage commands are intended to be invoked only on a Group Manager system.

The Group Manager must be an HP-UX system running Instant Capacity version 8 or later software. The system running the Group Manager does not need to have any Instant Capacity components, nor does it need to be a partitionable system. A Group Manager cannot be run on a virtual machine (also known as a “guest”). The system must have a machine-readable serial number, as displayed by the command getconf CS_MACHINE_SERIAL.

The Group Manager may be run on either a partitionable or non-partitionable system. If run on a partitionable system, changing the configuration of the partitions may result in the Group Manager becoming inoperative. It is recommended that the Group Manager be on a separate server for optimal availability. The number of groups on a Group Manager has no impact on performance.

While the size of GiCAP groups is not specifically restricted, performance of group-related functions is affected by the number of group members and the number of partitions for each member server, as well as the types of hardware involved. A larger number of group members can cause an increase in startup time for the Group Manager and may also affect the performance of icapmodify commands when a transfer of usage rights occurs. If temporary capacity is being used, then the size of the group may also increase the amount of communication time needed for tracking of temporary capacity.