Introducing HP-UX 11i Virtual Partitions

Sep 2007 10
Processor
0
Host PCI Bridge
4
Host PCI Bridge
5
SCSI
0/0
Main
Memory
Base Length
0x01000000, 128MB
0x40000000, 1GB
Processor
1
Processor
2
Processor
3
Disk
6.0
SCSI
0/0
Disk
6.0
Console
2/0
LAN
1/0
LAN
1/0
vPar1 – “Bill” vPar2 – “Dave”
Main
Memory
Base Length
0x08000000, 896MB
Figure 6: Generic HP-UX server block diagram with two vPars
Application 1
HP-UX 11i
Version 1
Hardware/Firmware
Application 2
HP-UX 11i
Version 1
Patch Level B
vPar Monitor
Figure 7: Software stack with two vPars
Notice that there is an additional layer of software and/or firmware in the vPar solution stack, the
Virtual Partition Monitor (vPar monitor). The monitor manages the partitioning of the resources,
loads kernels, and emulates global platform resources to create the illusion that each instance of
HP-UX that it is on a standalone system with only the resources that have been dedicated to that
vPar.
Each instance of HP-UX is completely unaware of the other hardware in the system. The individual
instances of HP-UX have complete ownership of the hardware resources that are assigned to them.
The monitor is not involved in accessing I/O hardware or physical memory once it has transferred
ownership of the hardware to a vPar.