Top Ten Tips for Using Virtual Partitions

#6 – Mixing vPar and HP-UX release versions
Symptoms: Supportability
Each system (on supported non-cell based) and each nPar (on supported cell based) has only one
vPar Monitor running which manages all of the vPars in that partition. And each vPar has its own
isolated Operating System. Due to the architecture of vPars and specific operating system
functionality, there is a supported vPar version to OS version relationship that must be followed. This
is primarily identified by the vPar Monitor since it is what is managing the whole vPar environment in
a given hard partition.
Currently as of the releases shown below, only one version of HP-UX is supported with each major
release of vPars: 11.11 (A.03.xx), 11.23 (A.04.xx) and 11.31 (A.05.xx). However, with vPars
A.05, you may mix vPar versions in the same nPar as shown below.
Prevention and Suggestions
Currently the following environments are supported:
• A.03.xx Release Stream
o Supports 11.11 / 11iv1 ONLY
o Supports PA ONLY
o Maintained as a separate release stream
o Can NOT mix with other release streams (ie. A.04) in same Hard Partition
• A.04.xx Release Stream
o Supports 11.23 (0505 & above) / 11iv2 (0505 & above) ONLY
o Supports PA and IPF
o Maintained as a separate release stream
o Can NOT mix with other release streams (ie. A.03) in same Hard Partition
• A.05.xx Release Stream
o A.05.xx monitor supports 11.31 (A.05.xx) and 11.23 (A.04.02)
o Supports PA and IPF
o Maintained as a separate release stream
o Can mix with other release streams starting with A.04.02 in same Hard Partition
Please see the whitepapers called “Architectural Considerations when Mixing Virtual Partition and
Operating System Versions” and “Mixed OS (HP-UX 11i v2/v3) Considerations in vPars A.05.xx” for
more details.
#7 – vPars and I/O Interrupt Processing
Symptoms: Performance
vPars releases prior to A.04 have CPUs that can be configured as bound or unbound (floating) CPUs.
The basic differences between a bound CPU and unbound CPU are that an unbound CPU does not
participate in I/O interrupt processing.
In A.04 all CPUs are capable of participating in I/O interrupt processing and all CPUs other than the
boot processor are capable of migrating while the vPar is running.
Top Ten Tips for using Virtual Partitions 6 of 8