Virtual Partitions Background

HP-UX Virtual Partitions (vPars) allow you to run multiple instances of HP-UX on the same HP 9000 server. From a hardware perspective a vPar consists of CPU, memory, and I/O that is a subset of the overall hardware on the computer. From a software perspective a vPar consists of the HP-UX 11i Operating Environment and all application- related software to successfully run your workload. Figure 16-1 shows a conceptual diagram of the way in whcih HP 9000 computer system resources can be allocated to support multiple vPars.

Figure 16-1. Example of HP System Resource Allocation with vPars

The components of which your HP 9000 is comprised can be allocated in a variety of ways. You can see that the eight-way system shown has a different number of processors, different amount of memory, and different number of I/O cards allocated to each vPar. The unused components can be added to any of the vPars or be the basis for yet another vPar. In addition, components can be moved from one vPar to another (with some restrictions described later in the chapter).