HP-UX Virtual Partitions Ordering and Configuration Guide (v09.06.16)

2 Overview of Virtual Partitions
HP-UX Virtual Partitions (vPars) is a powerful tool that runs multiple instances of the HP-UX
11i Operating Environment (OE) simultaneously on one server or nPartition, where each virtual
partition:
• has its own assigned set of CPU (processing core), memory, and I/O resources (resource
isolation)
• runs its own separate instance of HP-UX with different patch levels (HP-UX kernel isolation)
• hosts its own set of applications in a fully isolated environment (application isolation)
“Well-behaved” applications built on HP-UX 11i are binary compatible to run within HP-UX
Virtual Partitions (vPars) on the same architecture family. No changes, recompilation or
re-certification is necessary. For more information see the following document (HP-UX 11i
Compatibility for HP Integrity and HP 9000 Servers) at: http://h20338.www2.hp.com/hpux11i/
downloads/HP-UX_Binary_Compatibility.pdf
2.1 Key Benefits and Features
The key benefits that vPars provides to customers are:
• Better system resource utilization (from typical 20-50% up to 80-90%)
• Flexible and dynamic resource adjustment
• Application isolation
• Server consolidation
vPars provides these benefits via the following features:
• Flexible “carving up”of existing server or nPartition resources into multiple, independent
OS instances per node
• Increased isolation (and uptime) of applications, their OSs and assigned resources (processing
cores, memory and I/O), with individual reconfiguration and reboot of the individual
partitions (not affecting other partitions)
• Dynamic movement of processor resources between virtual partitions (for variable workload
requirements)
• Single processing core granularity per virtual partition
2.2 Advantages of HP-UX vPars
vPars offers:
• Flexibility
— Compatibility with nPartitions (hard partitions)
— Integration with iCAP (Instant Capacity on Demand)
— Dynamic creation of virtual partitions while other virtual partitions are running
• Automated and Intelligent Management
— Goal-based workload management across virtual partitions (cross-virtual partition
integration with HP-UX Workload Manager)
— Easy, automated deployment through Ignite-UX
• Integration with the rest of the HP VSE (Virtual Server Environment) for HP-UX
— HP Partitioning Continuum, Workload Manager, iCAP and PPU, Rapid Deployment
2.3 Features of vPars Software by Release
This section outlines the features in brief for each of the supported vPars releases. For detailed
information, see the HP-UX Virtual Partitions Release Notes for a specific release.
2.1 Key Benefits and Features 11