2.4.4 Capacity Upgrade on-Demand
The Power E1080 server includes several active processor cores and memory units. It can also include inactive processor cores and memory units.
Active processor cores or memory units are processor cores or memory units that are available for use on your server when it comes from the manufacturer. Inactive cores or units are processor cores or memory units that are included with your server, but not available for use until you activate them.
Inactive processor cores and memory units can be permanently activated by purchasing an activation feature that is called CUoD and entering the provided activation code on the HMC for the server.
With the CUoD offering, you can purchase more static processors or memory capacity and dynamically activate them without restarting your server or interrupting your business. All the static processor or memory activations are restricted to a single server.
CUoD features several benefits that enable a more flexible environment. One benefits is reducing the initial investment in a system. Traditional projects that use other technologies means that a system must be acquired with all the resources available to support the entire lifecycle of the project. As a result, you pay up front for capacity that you do not need until the later stages of the project or possibly at all, which affects software licensing costs and software maintenance.
By using CUoD, a company starts with a system with enough installed resources to support the entire project lifecycle, but uses only active resources that are necessary for the initial project phases. Resources can be added as the project proceeds by activating resources as needed. Therefore, a company can reduce the initial investment in hardware and acquire software licenses only when they are needed for each project phase, which reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) and total cost of acquisition (TCA) of the solution.
Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 79
Figure 2-15 shows a comparison between two scenarios: a fully activated system versus a system with CUoD resources being activated along the project timeline.
Figure 2-15 Active cores scenarios comparison during a project lifecycle