CPUs can dynamically be added to a running system, by using Hot Add CPU feature. New hardware can be added physically and online hardware partitioning logically. A virtualization layer can be used to add this feature virtually.

Hot Add CPU feature allows a database for scaling on demand for extending memory resources added online, The CPU resources can be supported for SQL Server 2008 on hardware platforms that supports, without the need of application downtime

The following are the requirements for Hot Add CPU:

1. Hardware which supports Hot Add CPU

2. Windows Server 2008 Datacenter server of 64-bit or Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition for the Itanium-Based System operating system.

3. SQL Server Enterprise.