Disable one processor of a UCS B200 Blade

[Julian.Milano]

I have a UCS B200 M3 and B200 M4 server which I need to disable 1 of the 2 processors for licensing purposes. From what I can see, this is only achievable by physically removing the 2nd processor and removing the RAM allocated to that processor. Is this the only way?

[Wes Austin · Accepted solution]

Hello,

You can disable the cores, if your application licensing is dependent on that:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/servers-unified-computing/ucs-c-series-rack-servers/whitepaper_C11-733130.html

Core Multiprocessing and Latency-Sensitive Single-Threaded Applications

The core multiprocessing option is designed to give the user the capability to disable cores. This option may affect the pricing of certain software packages that are licensed by the core. You should consult your software license and software vendor about whether disabling cores qualifies you for any particular pricing policies. Set core multiprocessing to All if pricing policy is not an issue for you. For latency-sensitive single-threaded applications, you can optimize performance by disabling unnecessary cores, disabling hyperthreading, enabling all C states, enabling Intel SpeedStep, and enabling Intel Turbo Boost. With this configuration, the remaining cores often will benefit from higher turbo speeds and better use of the shared Layer 3 cache.

However, in most cases you would need to physically remove the CPU. For example, Oracle applications will typically still require you to license the processor if it is physically installed, whether cores are enabled or not.

HTH,

Wes

[Julian.Milano]

Thanks Wes, I thought as much. I have reduced cores for SQL licensing and for Oracle licensing we need to remove a processor but as you said, it looks like the only way is to remove the 2nd CPU and remove the allocated RAM to that CPU and try to relocate as much as possible of it to the 1st CPU.