Introduction

new at
11i original release

Hewlett-Packard's new nPartition (hard partition) servers provide highly configurable, high-performance HP-UX system environments.

Currently, HP supports hard partitions on the following servers:

The ability to create hard partitions allows you to configure a single nPartition server as either one large system or as multiple smaller systems. Because hard partitions are managed through software, you can reconfigure a server without physically modifying the server's hardware configuration.

As a result, an nPartition server can run multiple instances of the 11i operating system on a single server. This capability is accomplished by defining multiple partitions within an nPartition server.

Each partition definition establishes a subset of a server's hardware resources that are to be used as a system environment for booting a single instance of HP-UX.

All processors, memory, and I/O in a partition are available exclusively to the software running in the partition. Thus, each partition runs a single instance of the Boot Console Handler (BCH) interface and HP-UX.

You can reconfigure partitions to include more, fewer, and/or different hardware resources, but this will require shutting down the operating system running in the partition and resetting the partition as part of reconfiguring it.

For specific task-oriented information on using the original HP-UX 11i release on HP Superdome servers, refer to Managing Superdome Complexes: A Guide for HP-UX System Administrators, part number B2355-90702, available on the HP-UX 11i Instant Information CD or on HP's documentation web site (http://docs.hp.com).

For current details on using HP-UX 11i on all nPartition servers, refer to the HP System Partitions Guide: Administration for nPartitions, part number B2355-90744.