Determining the usage limit for products priced by processor

For Power Systems that meet certain requirements, the operating system automatically adjusts the number of available processors to match the installed usage limit for IBM® i feature 5051.

Processing capacity adjustment

The number of active processors that you configure for your system can exceed the number of IBM i processor entitlements that you have purchased. The operating system automatically adjusts the number of available processors to reflect the installed processor entitlement for IBM i feature 5051. Processing capacity adjustment is only applicable if your system meets the following requirements:
  • The system is a POWER6® or higher system.
  • The system is configured with a single partition.
  • The partition uses dedicated processors.
  • The system is not attached to a hardware management console (HMC).

Default usage limit

The default usage limit for IBM i processor entitlement feature 5051 is one processor. The default usage limit might be in effect if you have never entered a valid license key, or if you have a temporary license key that has expired.

If your partition is running under the default usage limit, the processing capacity adjustment is not performed. When you are using a temporary license key, your partition's user count is adjusted to match the usage limit of the temporary license key. When a temporary key expires, the usage limit reverts to the default usage limit. If the configured IBM i processing capacity exceeds the default usage limit, a compliance message is sent to the QSYSOPR message queue every hour.