Enabling hyperthreading feature

Learn how to enable the hyperthreading feature to properly count your license usage on the clusters where Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) or Hyper-Threading (HT) are enabled.

License Service works in the background and does not require any configuration for license compliance. However, you can perform optional configuration to enable additional License Service features and get more benefits. By default, the features are disabled and transparent. To enable these features, edit the IBMLicensing custom resource.

Use the hyperthreading feature to enable License Service to properly count your license usage on the clusters where Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) or Hyper-Threading (HT) are enabled. When you enable hyperthreading, your license usage on clusters with SMT or HT are aggregated with regard to the hyperthreading rules.

Procedure

License Service supports hyperthreading, also referred to as Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) or Hyper-Threading (HT). To take advantage of the benefits of using this technology, enable hyperthreading in License Service. Hyperthreading might have great impact on your licensing costs. For more information, see Hyperthreading.

You can enable hyperthreading for the clusters where all working nodes have SMT or HT enabled. To enable hyperthreading, complete the following steps.

• From the OpenShift console:

  1. Log in to your OpenShift console.
  2. Go to Operators > Installed Operators.
  3. From the Project drop-down list, select All Projects
  4. Select IBM Licensing Operator.
  5. Select the IBM License Service tab. The instance of License Service custom resource is listed.
  6. From the overflow action menu, select Edit IBMLicensing.
  7. Edit the YAML.

  8. Add the following lines to the IBMLicensing section, under spec:

     features:
     hyperThreading:
       threadsPerCore: <number of threads>
     

     For more information about the possible values for the threadsPerCore parameter, see The value of the threadsPerCore parameter.

• From the command line:

  1. Run the following command:

     kubectl edit IBMLicensing instance -n ibm-licensing
     

     Note: The recommended namespace for License Service installation is ibm-licensing. The command contains this default namespace. However, you can install License Service in any other custom namespace. If you installed License Service in a custom namespace, replace ibm-licensing with the name of the custom namespace.

     1. Add the following lines to the IBMLicensing section, under spec:

     features:
       hyperThreading:
         threadsPerCore: <number of threads>
     

     For more information about the possible values for the threadsPerCore parameter, see The value of the threadsPerCore parameter.

The value of the threadsPerCore parameter

Set the value of the threadsPerCore parameter to the lowest number of threads per core in your infrastructure. The following table lists the acceptable values.