Partitioning
Partitioning
Partitioning
Partitioning
A hardware partition corresponds roughly to a single, standalone system. The HP 9000 rp8440 Server
can be subdivided into four partitions, each containing one or more cells that communicates coherently
over a high bandwidth, low latency crossbar fabric. Special programmable hardware in the cells defines
the boundaries of a partition in such a way that the isolation is enforced from the actions of other
partitions. Each partition runs its own independent instance of the operating system (HP UX 11i v1, v2
and v3). Applications cannot span partitions since each partition runs its own instance of the OS,
essentially functioning as a stand alone server. However, different partitions may be executing the same
or different revisions of an operating system, or they may be executing different operating systems, with
OS availability.
Each partition has its own independent processors, memory and I/O resources consisting of the
resources of the cells that make up the partition. Resources may be removed from one partition and
added to another without having to physically manipulate the hardware just by using commands that are
part of the System Management interface. With future releases of HP UX and Windows, using the related
capabilities of dynamic reconfiguration (e.g. on line addition, on line removal), new resources may be
added to a partition and failed modules may be removed and replaced while the partition continues in
operation.
Partitioning the resources of the complex in this way makes it easy to run multiple applications on the
same physical system; you can allocate physical resources and tune the operating system running on
each partition depending on the needs of the application (or the most important application) you intend
to run on it. Alternatively, you can configure the HP 9000 rp8440 Server as a single partition, allowing
all the resources to be focused on a single set of tasks, for example a large online transaction processing
application.
You can increase or reduce the processing power of a partition by adding or deleting cells. With the
rp8440, you must shut down the operating system running on the affected partition(s) before moving
cells, and before making configuration changes that will take effect. Though the OS may include
commands for some configuration tasks, HP recommends you use the Partition Manager (parmgr) to
configure partitions.
Hardware based partition configuration changes may require a reboot of the partition depending upon
the configuration change. The reboot of the partition only affects the partition that is being reconfigured.
The other partitions defined in the chassis are not affected and will continue to execute without
interruption. In a future HP UX release, dynamic hard partitions will be supported. Dynamic partitions
imply that partition configuration changes do not require a reboot of the partition.
The HP 9000 rp8440 Server can be divided into four independent hardware partitions when configured
with the HP Server Expansion Unit 2. In a partitioned configuration, I/O bay resources such as I/O slots,
core I/O, disk and removable media bays, are always dedicated to the corresponding cell board slot. In
other words, I/O bay 0 resources are always configured to the cell board in Cell slot 0. Therefore, in a
partitioned system, the amount of resources within a partition is always proportional to the number of
cells within that partition. There is no flexibility to otherwise divide these components. For example, in a
system configured with two cells in separate nPars, it is not possible to include twelve I/O slots in
partition 0 and four I/O slots in partition 1. Please refer to the "HP Server Expansion Unit 2" section in
this guide or more specific details.
The table below summarizes the resource availability based on hardware partitions.
QuickSpecs
HP 9000 rp8440 Server
HP 9000 rp8440 Server
HP 9000 rp8440 Server
HP 9000 rp8440 Server
Configuration
DA - 12697 North America — Version 4 — March 3, 2008
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