HP-UX Virtual Partitions 6.0 Release Notes

2 How does vPars v6.0 differ from its earlier versions
To improve management of virtual partitions, in vPars v6.0 the management of virtual partitions is
converged under an overall management framework founded on the HP Integrity Virtual Machines
(Integrity VM) management software. The new framework expands the functionality of vPars to
Integrity blades. This section briefly describes some of the major differences.
Virtualization Services Platform (VSP) – the common management interface
VSP is the new management platform for vPars. From the VSP you can exercise complete control
over your virtual partitions – create, start, stop, modify, and delete. The VSP also provides a GUI
to configure and manage vPars. In vPars v6.0, the vPars command-line interface is moved from
the vPars to the VSP to provide a centralized model for vPars management. The vPar commands
are no longer available from within the vPars. All vPar commands can only be run from the VSP.
The VSP is hosted on an HP-UX environment that requires its own set of CPU, memory, and I/O
resources. In addition to the management of vPars, the VSP provides the infrastructure for shared
I/O, vPar resource allocation, and virtual firmware. For information on installing the HP-UX Virtual
Partitions v6.0, see “Installing HP-UX Virtual Partitions v6.0” (page 13).
Table 1 (page 5) lists the new vPar management commands in vPars v6.0.
Table 1 New vPar management commands in HP-UX Virtual Partitions v6.0
DescriptionCommand
A command that provides connection to the virtual console of a specified virtual partition. Each
virtual partition has its own virtual console from which you can manage the virtual partition
operating environment, that is access EFI shell, dbprofiles, and so on.
vparconsole
A command that helps manage the virtual partition resource pool, that is, the pool of CPU resources
dedicated for use by the vPars.
vparhwmgmt
A command that creates and controls the virtual network switches (vswitch) for the virtual partitions.
A virtual partition accesses the network through a virtual network interface (vNIC) connected to a
vparnet
port provided by the virtual network switch (vswitch). The virtual network switch may be connected
in turn to a single physical network interface (pNIC) on the VSP.
With the introduction of VSP, a number of commands used with earlier versions of vPars are not
required. The commands that are no longer available are: vparadmin, vpardbprofile,
vparconfig, vpardump, vparefiutil, vparenv, vparextract, vparreloc, vparutil,
and vecheck.
Enhanced control via GUI application HP Integrity Virtual Server Manager
While earlier versions of vPars provided status/view-only support in a GUI, in HP-UX Virtual
Partitions v6.0 you can configure, modify, and view status of virtual partitions using the GUI. HP
Integrity Virtual Server Manager is the new GUI application and is accessible from the HP System
Management Homepage (HP SMH) of the VSP.
vPar virtual console – access via VSP
In vPars v6.0, each vPar has a dedicated console. You can access the console of any virtual
partition from the VSP or from a Virtual iLO Remote Console, via telnet or secure shell. To access
the Virtual iLO Remote Console of a specific vPar, it must be configured with an IP address, a
network mask, and have authorized users (root user is the default). See the -u, -g,-K, and -L
options of vparcreate and vparmodify commands.
Virtualization Services Platform (VSP) – the common management interface 5