Installing and Managing HP-UX Virtual Partitions (A.02.01)

Introduction
What Is vPars?
Chapter 1 19
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 I/O), so there are no resource conflicts between virtual
partitions.
• Virtual partitions can be of different operating system 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 MC/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.