HP-UX System Administrator's Guide: Overview HP-UX 11i v3 (B3921-90011, September 2010)

Software Partitioning
vPar 3vPar 2vPar 1
Software partitioning provides for finer grained partitioning than nPartitions. HP offers two
products to accomplish software partitioning:
1. vPars - Virtual Partitions
2. Integrity VM - Integrity Virtual Machines
Using either of these two products, you can partition your server at the processing core level.
Integrity VM even allows sub-core-level partitioning.
Key Features of Software Partitioning Important features of software partitioning include:
• Implemented at the processing core level (for vPars), or by time slices (for Integrity VM)
• Provides functional but not electrical isolation
• Partitions are referred to as:
— vPars (if implemented using the Virtual Partitions product)
— guest operating systems (if implemented using the Integrity Virtual Machines product)
• nPartitions can be further subdivided using software partitioning
• vPars only supports instances of HP-UX
Comparing Partitioning Technologies
The following table compares the three partitioning technologies (nPartitions, vPars, and Integrity
Virtual Machines):
Table 2-1 A Partitioning Technology Comparison
Integrity Virtual MachinesvParsnPartitions
Operating SystemOperating SystemOperating System and
Electrical
Isolation
Time SlicesCores and Memory
Chunks
Cell Board / Superdome 2
Blade Groups
Partition boundaries
The hpvmcreate command
vPars Monitor (and its
partition database) or
the Superdome 2
Onboard
Administrator (OA)
Parmgr or the Superdome
2 Onboard Administrator
(OA)
Partitions configured using...
Guest Operating SystemsVirtual PartitionsnPartitions or hard
partitions
Partitions are called...
36 HP-UX Virtualization Technologies