Technical data

nPartition System Overviews

Introduction

HP System Partitions Guide: Administration for nPartitions, rev 5.1

You can reconﬁgure a server’s nPartition deﬁnitions without physically

modifying the server’s hardware conﬁguration by using HP’s

software-based nPartition management tools.

You can reconﬁgure any nPartition to include more, fewer, and/or

different hardware resources. Doing this requires shutting down the

operating system running in the nPartition and resetting the nPartition

to reconﬁgure it; this reboot for reconﬁg operation is performed using the

shutdown -R HP-UX command (using the -R option, not -r).

With HP’s nPartition servers, you can start with a system that meets

your needs now and add more components (cells and I/O) as your needs

increase.

For example, with a Superdome server you can add cells, I/O chassis,

and/or upgrade to larger-capacity systems as needed. A Superdome

16-way server can be upgraded to a Superdome 32-way server, and

likewise the Superdome 32-way server can be upgraded to Superdome

64-way server. You also can add I/O expansion cabinets to a Superdome

server at any time.

Administration Tools for nPartitions

You can use several administration tools to manage nPartitions in a

server complex, including the service processor, consoles, Boot Console

Handler (BCH) interfaces, HP-UX commands, and Partition Manager.

• Server complex’s service processor (GSP or MP), which includes

the Command menu, partition consoles, partition Virtual Front

Panels, partition Console Logs, and the Chassis Log viewer.

• nPartition console and BCH interface, which provides console

access (through the service processor) as well as interactive control

before HP-UX has booted on an nPartition.

• HP-UX nPartition commands (including parstatus, parcreate,

parmodify, and others) enable you to list, monitor, conﬁgure, and

manage nPartitions from HP-UX.

• The Partition Manager utility (/opt/parmgr/bin/parmgr)

provides a graphical interface for listing and managing nPartitions.

See Tools for Managing nPartitions on page 70 for more details.