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Is it possible to disable CPU (Intel) cores in BIOS, and if yes what HP/DELL (others?) 1U/2U servers would allow this?

It is becoming difficult to find new server hardware with dual core CPUs, most of new servers are Quad Core ones, and so the cost of Oracle licenses makes server upgrades unreasonably complicated. Which brings me to the question above.

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not really an answer (don't have chance to test it), but I found this: en.kioskea.net/faq/… - would it work? – nhek Dec 8 '09 at 17:49
Thanks. Yes I know about maxcpus. However there is a fear that oracle might see all the cores through some hardware probes, and legality of this method (in regards to the licensing agreement) is unclear. Disabling cores in BIOS should be a cleaner approach. – monomyth Dec 8 '09 at 18:02
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Are you sure that disabling a core in BIOS would affect Oracle licensing? Oracle generally doesn't allow you to license a subset of the cores in the system if you are merely using software partitioning to restrict which cores Oracle can access-- they require an approved hardware partitioning solution. I doubt that BIOS settings would qualify. Various licensing restrictions also talk about the number of cores that could be installed in the box if you're using various Standard Edition/ Standard Edition One products. – Justin Cave Dec 8 '09 at 20:57
Justin, good point. I have no idea if this is permitted, but logically I see no reason why it shouldn't be, because it precisely addresses the software partitioning problem. Disabled cores are not available to the operating system and/or software at any level. – monomyth Dec 8 '09 at 22:07
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I agree that it seems logical, but I have learned that legal issues don't necessarily flow logically from a technology standpoint. I'd make sure that either your legal department or your Oracle Sales rep buys off on disabling cores in the BIOS before making any decisions. – Justin Cave Dec 8 '09 at 22:14
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up vote 8 down vote accepted

With the HP Proliant G5 and G6 servers (e.g. DL380, ML370, etc.), it is possible to disable half of the cores available to the server.

This is a BIOS switch labeled "Processor Core Disable" with options "All Processors Enabled" and "Disable One-Half of cores per Physical Processor."

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thank you, exactly what I was looking for! – monomyth Dec 9 '09 at 17:44
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IBM UEFI-based Intel 5500 and above servers also allow you to run only one/two/four/etc. cores per CPU. – MikeyB Dec 10 '11 at 14:00
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You could consider running VMWare ESXi on the hardware, and only present 4 processing cores to the guest. The "overhead" should be negotiable as there would be four free cores.

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I would recommend you carefully review the merits of VMWare for exactly this scenario and not simply brush it aside as ineffective or inefficient. – SirStan Dec 8 '09 at 18:25
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Agree with SirStan. This is the exact sort of place where virtualization shines: you need a specific hardware platform that is becoming hard to obtain. A VM will give you that flexibility, and if your license changes, then you can just add more cores to the VM, or even move the virtualized machine to new hardware and add more resources there. – Satanicpuppy Dec 8 '09 at 18:56
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No. by running the Oracle machine in a VM, you gain very granular control of CPU resources independent of the options offered by a particular machines BIOS. Three people can't see a better option. They're not all completely senseless. It also gives you hardware independence which is an advantage not to be ignored. I run compute servers in VMs. It costs me ~5% performance, which is a price I'll pay for convenience and in my case trivial SAN boot. I'm not aware of a BIOS that lets you do anything other than disable all cores but one in a socket. That I suspect isn't good enough. – xenny Dec 8 '09 at 20:59
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xenny you should really read through this wikipedia article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum :) As of hardware independence, it's true but was never requested as part of the question, requires SAN, multiple server hardware, and proper VMWare licensing, non of which was mentioned by magical "virtualize it" suggestion. – monomyth Dec 8 '09 at 22:02
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Monomyth: None of those things are required. SAN? No, use local disks. Multiple servers? No, just use the server you were going to use. Licensing? I guess true, but ESXi is free. Using virtualization will give you a way to say "this OS can only see X CPUs" with certainty. Later, if you buy a bigger Oracle license, you can turn up the number of CPUs with a reboot. What's the problem here? Yes, there's overhead. The CPUs you're disabling can be used to run VMWare :) – Bill Weiss Dec 9 '09 at 16:59
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