Instant Capacity Software

What software product is required for Instant Capacity on Itanium-based servers running HP-UX 11i v2? The HP software bundle for the Instant Capacity versions 8.x software, on Itanium-based servers running HP-UX 11i v1 or 11i v2, is HP product number B9073BA.

Can one HP enterprise server be under both a Pay per use (PPU) and Instant Capacity contract at the same time? No, the Pay per use and Instant Capacity software bundles are mutually exclusive. They can both be installed on the same HP enterprise server, but because the server can only be purchased using either PPU or Instant Capacity (but not both), the server can only be configured for the purchased pricing solution.

Where can I find the Instant Capacity 8.x software bundle? The Instant Capacity 8.x software bundle (B9073BA for HP-UX systems, BA484AA for OpenVMS systems) is installed at the factory for new HP-UX systems and is automatically installed on OpenVMS I64 V8.3 systems when the operating system is installed. However, if you need to install the software it is available from the following:

See “Installing Instant Capacity Software” for details of installing the Instant Capacity 8.x software bundle.

One of my HP-UX or OpenVMS applications has compatibility issues with the Instant Capacity software. How do I correct the problem? The application may have a problem when cores are activated or deactivated. Some applications size themselves at system startup based on the number of active cores and they don’t adjust for core increases or decreases. See “Software Application Considerations” for details.

We would like to utilize temporary capacity on our Itanium-based server. What system configuration is necessary and how do we acquire Temporary Instant Capacity? See Chapter 5 “Temporary Instant Capacity” for details of temporary capacity. First, purchase Temporary Instant Capacity (TiCAP) from your HP sales representative, acquire and apply the TiCAP codeword, and then you can activate additional cores with temporary capacity. If you want asset reporting in order to view temporary capacity balances on the Utility Pricing Solutions portal, then make sure that e-mail is properly configured for the system you plan on using temporary capacity. See “Diagnosing E-mail Configuration” for details.

How much history is retained in the Instant Capacity log files? The Instant Capacity log files retain up to 2 MB of Instant Capacity events. An Instant Capacity event occurs, and is written to the log files, when one of the following happen:

You can view all events in the Instant Capacity log files by viewing the file /var/adm/icap.log or/var/adm/icap.log.old on HP-UX systems, and sys$manager:icap.log on OpenVMS systems.

How can I obtain codewords for newly purchased usage rights (RTUs) if the Utility Pricing Solutions portal is down? If the Utility Pricing Solutions portal is down, contact the HP Response Center. The Response Center can create an emergency codeword via the Instant Capacity codeword backup tool. If you do not receive a timely response from the HP Response Center, contact the Instant Capacity administrator by sending an e-mail message to: icap_admin@hp.com. The administrator can also create an emergency codeword via the Instant Capacity codeword backup tool.

What licensing is required for the Instant Capacity software? For Instant Capacity versions 8.x, if you desire to utilize additional components (cores, cell boards, or memory) then you must acquire additional usage rights (RTUs) individually. See “Usage Rights Requirement” for details.

The resulting configuration of my Instant Capacity system does not agree with what I ordered from HP. How did this configuration change occur? The Instant Capacity software is able to control the granularity of processor activation/deactivation to the single core level. The Instant Capacity ordering and manufacturing rules often do not allow such fine granularity.

The Instant Capacity ordering rules dictate the quantity of cores with and without usage rights in the cell boards. Because the Instant Capacity software distributes the core usage rights (for a given partition) in a manner that optimizes loads across all cells, the resultant configuration may be different than the original order — but the number of cores with and without usage rights matches what was ordered.

For example, consider the situation where you order an rx8620 server with two cell boards, in which cell board #1 contains 4 active cores with usage rights and cell board #2 contains 2 active cores with usage rights and 2 inactive cores without usage rights; a total of 6 active and 2 inactive cores. At runtime, the Instant Capacity software balances the distribution of active cores across the cell boards so that each cell has 3 active cores with usage rights and 1 inactive core without usage rights.

How does Instant Capacity interact/coexist with partitions running software other than HP-UX? Instant Capacity is supported only on HP-UX and OpenVMS Integrity systems. If other partitions of an Instant Capacity system are running another operating system, then the Instant Capacity software assumes that all the system components in the non-HP-UX and OpenVMS partitions are active components (with usage rights). When checking for the correct number of inactive components without usage rights, only the HP-UX and OpenVMS partitions will be examined.

What e-mail is sent by the Instant Capacity software? The following table lists the e-mail messages sent to the system from the Instant Capacity software. Note that on OpenVMS systems, the iCAP software agent is ICAP_SERVER rather than icapd.

If asset reporting is configured, and the system has e-mail connectivity to HP, these messages are sent to HP:

Does the upgrade of one partition on a server to iCAP v8 mean that every partition must be upgraded? No, not for basic iCAP functionality. iCAP v8 is compatible with older versions back to v6. Earlier versions of iCAP need to be upgraded, as described in “Upgrading to Instant Capacity versions B.06.x or later (HP-UX)”. However, in order to use the GiCAP feature, all partitions of a server must be running version 8 of the iCAP software.