Binding applications to processors

[Sidharth Gurswamy]

Hi everyone,

I have a rp4440 server running HP-UX hosting custom built applications and oracle DB. It is a 4 way server with only 2 processors in place leaving the capability to increase capacity by another 2 CPU's. Currently as I understand, we have enough licenses for Oracle with the current number of processors. If we increase the number of processors, is there a way to bind applications to processors, i.e. bind oracle to the existing 2 processors and bind the other applications to the other processors which we are looking to add to the server?

I was wondering if anyone is aware if this is possible first of all. If the answer is yes, how can I can make it work?

Thanks
Sid

[Arunvijai_4 · Accepted solution]

Hi Sid,

You need to have Processor Resource Manager (PMR) and here is a trailversion, http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=B3835DATRY

Also, check Processor Sets
http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=PSETS

-Arun

[Bill Hassell]

Binding the Oracle processes to just two of the processors will not chyange the licensing requirements. Oracle looks at the total number processors as it starts and knows nothing about binding. If you cannot buy the extra licenses, you'll have to use something like vPar to isolate the Oracle processes into a separate partition. Of course, the processes in the second partition cannot see the Oracle partition except through networking.

[Sunil Sharma_1]

Sid,

HP Unix by default don't give facility to bind or reserver resource for specific application/DB/process/user. HP has a proced product name PRM (Process Resource Manager), this product has feature to control resources based on process/user/application.

Sunil

[Jonathan Fears]

HP Process Resource Manager (PRM), when combined with HP-UX Processor Sets (PSETs), can enabled you to create a PSET PRM group to isolate your Oracle processes to a specific number of processors. As long as Oracle is started in the PSET, it will only recognize the processors in that particular PSET and not those for the entire system. This is one of the reasons using PSET PRM groups with Oracle is the recommended practice. There is a white paper on http://docs.hp.com (under 'High Availability' then 'Process Resource Manager') entitled "Using HP PRM with Oracle databases" that gives more detail about possible PRM configurations when using Oracle.

[Sidharth Gurswamy]

Thanks for all the solutions. Will be reading up on PRM and hopefully implement it without too many issues.

Sid