HP nPartitions (nPars) are hard partition technology, within HP’s Virtual Server Environment, that enable you to configure a single server complex as one large server or as multiple smaller servers.
Each nPartition has one or more cells (containing processors and memory) that are assigned to the partition for its exclusive use. Any I/O chassis that is attached to a cell belonging to a partition, is also assigned to that partition. Since each nPartition has its own processor, memory and I/O resources consisting of the resources of the cells allocated to the nPartition, resources may be removed from one nPartition and added to another without having to physically remove and add hardware. Additionally, dynamic creation and modification of nPartitions is supported.
With HP-UX 11i v3, nPartitions become dynamic, meaning resource reconfiguration can be done without shutting down the affected nPartitions.
HP-UX 11i nPartitions are certified safe and meeting the security requirements of the
Common Criteria. The benefit is a third-party evaluation of protections against an approved protection profile. nPar is a safe method of partitioning assuring that an application within an nPar is isolated.
HP nPartitions provide:
- Electrical hardware and security isolation
- Cell granularity
- No overheads
- Flexibility of resources
Each nPartition hosts its own operating system instance, applications and users.
This type of virtualisation technology enables you to:
- Increase server utilisation (by utilising unused cells in a server)
- Isolate operating environments
- Improve system availability
- Consolidate enterprise-class servers
- Improve cost of ownership
The key to many consolidation efforts is the availability of the applications. By providing for electrical hardware and security isolation, nPartitions applications can be combined onto a single system.
The advantages of HP nPartitions include the following:
- Multi-OS support: 4 operating systems can be run on 1 server: HP-UX, Windows, Linux and OpenVMS
- The ability to physically maintain part of a server, while other nPartitions continue to run
- The mixing and matching of processor architectures: PA-RISC and Itanium processors in 1 cabinet
- The dynamic adding and removing of cells in running nPartitions with HP-UX 11i v3 Dynamic nPartitions
