Installing and Managing HP-UX Virtual Partitions (includes A.04.01)

Introduction
What Is vPars?
Chapter 1
18
Figure 1-2A Superdome Cabinet
A hard partition is any isolated hardware environment, such as an nPartition within a
Superdome complex or an entire rp7400/N4000 server.
A 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 where each virtual partition
contains an instance of HP-UX. Though a hard partition can contain multiple virtual
partitions, the inverse is not true. 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. Thus, different applications or multiple instances
of the same application can run in different virtual partitions on the same hard partition at the same time
without conflicts.
• Each virtual partition is assigned its own resources (CPU, memory, and IO), so there are no resource
conflicts between virtual partitions.
• Virtual partitions can be of different 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 does not imply a
presence on any other partition.
• Software-related kernel panics
1
, resource exhaustion failures, and subsequent reboots in one virtual
partition do not affect any other virtual partition.
• CPUs available at boot time can be added to or removed from a virtual partition without rebooting.
1. Except if the vPars software product itself panics.