Logical partition, Software and hardware fault isolation, Dynamic logical partitioning – IBM DS8000 User Manual

Page 68: Micro-partitioning, Virtual i/o, Software isolation, On the fly

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46

DS8000 Series: Concepts and Architecture

Figure 3-1 Logical partition

Software and hardware fault isolation

Because a partition hosts an independent operating system image, there is strong

software

isolation

. This means that a job or software crash in one partition will not effect the resources

in another partition.

Dynamic logical partitioning

Starting from AIX 5L™ Version 5.2, IBM supports dynamic logical partitioning (also known as
DLPAR) in partitions on several logical partitioning capable IBM pSeries server models.

The dynamic logical partitioning function allows resources, such as CPUs, memory, and I/O
slots, to be added to or removed from a partition, as well as allowing the resources to be
moved between two partitions, without an operating system reboot (

on the fly

).

Micro-Partitioning™

With AIX 5.3, partitioning capabilities are enhanced to include sub-processor partitioning, or
Micro-Partitioning. With Micro-Partitioning it is possible to allocate less than a full physical
processor to a logical partition.

The benefit of Micro-Partitioning is that it allows increased overall utilization of system
resources by automatically applying only the required amount of processor resource needed
by each partition.

Virtual I/O

On POWER5 servers, I/O resources (disks and adapters) can be shared through Virtual I/O.
Virtual I/O provides the ability to dedicate I/O adapters and devices to a virtual server,

hardware management console

Logical

Partition 0

Logical Partition 1

Logical Partition 2

Processor

Cache

Processor

Cache

Processor

Cache

Processor

Cache

Processor

Cache

Processor

Cache

I/O

I/O

I/O

I/O

I/O

I/O

I/O

I/O

I/O

I/O

I/O

I/O

Memory

Logical Partition

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