Installing and Managing HP-UX Virtual Partitions (A.01.01)

How vPars Works
Partitioning Using vPars
Chapter 224
Each application can run on top of separate OS instances. Instead of a
single OS instance owning all the hardware, the vPars monitor manages
the virtual partitions and their OSinstances as well as the assignment of
hardware resources to each virtual partition.
Figure 2-4 Software Stack for Computer with n Virtual Partitions (n==2)
vPars Monitor
The vPars monitor manages the assignment of hardware resources to
virtual partitions, boots virtual partitions and their kernels, and
emulates certain firmware calls. By emulating these specific calls, vPars
creates the illusion to each HP-UX instance that it is running on a
standalone computer, consisting of the hardware that has been assigned
to it.
Once a partition is launched, the monitor transfers ownership of the
hardware to the virtual partition. At that point the monitor is not
involved in accessing I/O hardware, physical memory, or process to
processor cycles: the individual HP-UX instances have complete
ownership of their respective hardware resources. This allows each
partition to run at full speed.
The commands for the vPars monitor are shown in the section “Using
Monitor Commands” on page 76; however, most of the vPars operations
are performed using vPars commands at the UNIX shell level. For more
Hardware / Firmware
Virtual Partition Monitor
HP-UX 11i
HP-UX 11i
Patch Level B
Application 1
Application 2