HP-UX Virtual Partitions Administrator Guide (includes A.05.07) (5900-1229, September 2010)

NOTE:
Definitions
This document uses the following definitions when discussing virtual partitions, nPartitions,
and hard partitions:
A complex is the entire partitionable server, including both cabinets, all cells, I/O chassis, cables,
and power and utility components.
A cabinet is the Superdome hardware “box”, which contains the cells, Guardian Service Processor
(GSP), internal I/O chassis, I/O fans, cabinet fans, and power supplies. A complex has up to two
cabinets.
Figure 1-2 Superdome Cabinet
A hard partition is any isolated hardware environment, such as an nPartition within a Superdome
complex or an entire rp7400/N4000 server.
An nPartition is a subset of a complex that divides the complex into groups of cell boards where
each group operates independently of other groups. An nPartition can run a single instance of
HP-UX or be further divided into virtual partitions.
A virtual partition is a software partition of a hard partition that contains an instance of HP-UX.
Though a hard partition can contain multiple virtual partitions, a virtual partition cannot span
a hard partition boundary.
Product Features
• A single hard partition can be divided into multiple virtual partitions.
• Each virtual partition runs its own instance of HP-UX. Therefore, a single hard partition can
contain multiple virtual partitions, and each virtual partition has a separate instance of
HP-UX running different applications (or the same applications) at the same time without
conflicts.
• Each virtual partition is assigned its own resources (cores, memory, and I/O), so there are
no resource conflicts between virtual partitions.
• Virtual partitions can have different OS releases and patch levels.
• Virtual partitions can be individually reconfigured and rebooted (for patches and other
changes that require a reboot).
• Users on one virtual partition cannot access files or file systems on other partitions unless
the file systems are NFS-mounted, or access is otherwise given through networking or for
cluster-aware volume groups used within ServiceGuard. Further, users configured on one
virtual partition do not automatically have access on any other partition.
18 Introduction