Dynamic capacity upgrade on demand

The z17 includes a function to dynamically increase the number of CPs, ICFs, IFLs, or zIIPs without an intervening IPL. A logical partition (LP) might be defined with both an initial and reserved amount of logical cores. This enables a definition where the number of logical cores for a logical partition is greater than the number of physical cores installed on the model. These reserved CPs are automatically in a deconfigured state at partition activation and can be brought online at any future time by the SCP operator command if the requested resource is available. To prepare for a nondisruptive upgrade, a Logical Partition simply needs to be defined and activated in advance with an activation profile indicating reserved CPs. This helps ensure that any planned logical partition can be as large as the possible physical machine configuration, nondisruptively.

With support available on the z17, the logical core definition for a logical partition can be dynamically changed without requiring a reactivation of the logical partition. This allows you to add to the definition of offline CPs (or any other supported processor types) dynamically should the need arise. If the system control program running in that logical partition supports this dynamic add capability, the additional offline CPs can be configured online in the same way as preplanned reserved CPs are brought online.

For more information about using dynamic CPU addition, see z/OS® MVS Planning: Operations.

The following example assumes a nondisruptive concurrent CP upgrade from an 8-Way to a 9-Way Server.