Partition Profiles; System Profiles; Types Of Partitions - IBM pSeries 690 User Manual

An affinity partition is a special type of logical partition in which processors and system memory are
allocated in a predefined way that may increase performance when running some types of applications
(memory is assigned to a processor that is in close physical proximity to it).
The HMC allows you to perform many hardware management tasks for your managed system, including
configuring logical partitions. You can choose to operate your managed system as a single server (called
full system partition), or you can choose to run multiple partitions.

Partition Profiles

A profile defines a configuration setup for a managed system or partition. The HMC allows you to create
multiple profiles for each managed system or partition. You can then use the profiles you created to start a
managed system or partition in a particular configuration.
A partition does not actually own any resources until it is activated; resource specifications are stored
within partition profiles. The same partition can operate using different resources at different times,
depending on the profile you activate.
When you activate a partition, you enable the system to create a partition using the set of resources in a
profile created for that partition. For example, a logical partition profile might indicate to the managed
system that its partition requires three processors, 2 gigabytes of memory, and I/O slots 6, 11, and 12
when activated.
You can have more than one profile for a partition. However, you can only activate a partition with one
profile at a time. Additionally, affinity partitions and logical partitions cannot be active at the same time.
When you create a partition profile, the HMC shows you all the resources available on your system. The
HMC does not, however, verify if another partition profile is currently using a portion of these resources.
For example, the HMC might show 16 processors on your system, but does not notify you that other
partitions are using nine of them. You can create two partition profiles, each using a majority of system
resources. If you attempt to activate both of these partitions at the same time, the second partition in the
activation list fails.

System Profiles

Using the HMC, you can create and activate often-used collections of predefined partition profiles. A
collection of predefined partition profiles is called a system profile. The system profile is an ordered list of
partitions and the profile that is to be activated for each partition. The first profile in the list is activated
first, followed by the second profile in the list, followed by the third, and so on.
The system profile helps you change the managed systems from one complete set of partitions
configurations to another. For example, a company might want to switch from using 12 partitions to using
only four, every day. To do this, the system administrator deactivates the 12 partitions and activates a
different system profile, one specifying four partitions.
When you create a group of affinity partitions, the HMC automatically creates a system profile that
includes all of the affinity partitions that you created.

Types of Partitions

The HMC allows you to use two types of partitions: logical partitions and the full system partition.
Logical Partitions
Logical partitions are user-defined system resource divisions. Users determine the number of processors,
memory, and I/O that a logical partition can have when active.
Chapter 2. Introducing the Eserver pSeries 690 9