Understanding Utilization Capping (HP-UX and OpenVMS)
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 | NOTE: PPU for Windows does not support Utilization Capping. Instead, you can control the number of available cores in a particular partition using either the parmgr command, or the deconfigure option of the Extensible Firmware Interface. |
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You are billed by HP according to the usage of the active cores in your PPU system. For example, if you are on the percent utilization metric and have a 32-core PPU Superdome system, you are billed the same amount whether you utilize all 32 cores at 50 percent utilization, or you utilize 16 cores at 100 percent utilization.
You can cap the usage of cores in your PPU system in any of these ways:
ppuconfig command — The ppuconfig command provides the easiest way to limit computing resources (except in a virtual partition, where it is not allowed). To specify an immediate cap (maximum) on the number of active cores in a partition, use the ppuconfig -rc number command — where number is the number of active cores you want in the partition. You must have at least one active core per cell board. See “ppuconfig (1M) Manpage” for details of the ppuconfig command on HP-UX systems.
Workload Management (WLM/gWLM) — workload management in combination with PPU provides a utility for setting computing resources. Both WLM and gWLM can address both fixed-resource capping (that is, placing an upper bound on utilization) as well as dynamic-resource allocation to address service-level objectives. Refer to the most current User’s Guide for WLM or gWLM for details.
Partition management — With either the parmodify command or parmgr, you can assign and activate or unassign and deactivate cells to control the number of active cores. Refer to the most current HP System Partitions: Administration for nPartitions for details.
Deconfigure — Use the appropriate boot-level interface for your server system to control the number of available cells or cores in your partition. On Integrity servers, you use the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and on PA-RISC systems, you use the HP-UX boot console handler (BCH). The basic procedure is:
Reboot your partition and stop the boot process at the boot-level interface (BCH or EFI).
Deconfigure the cores using the appropriate cpuconfig or cellconfig command and per the configuration rules.
Boot the partition.
HP recommends that you use the PPU CONFIG/CAP=n/RECONCILE command to activate and deactivate cores on OpenVMS I64 PPU systems. If the DCL commands START/CPU or STOP/CPU are used to activate or deactivate cores, the operation is allowed. The output of the PPU CONFIG command will list an active core value based on the results of the DCL command. This active core value will differ from the cap value entered in the PPU command. Enter the PPU CONFIG/RECONCILE command to adjust the number of active cores to the PPU cap value.
In a future version of PPU, the PPU_SERVER process will dynamically adjust the active core value to the PPU cap value.