Managing Partitions - Basics; Npartitions - HP Integrity Superdome 2 16-socket Administrator's Manual

Figure 1 OA GUI Login Screen
2. Enter the OA Administrator password.
NOTE:
Managing Partitions – basics
The partition management architecture on HP Superdome 2 is designed to adapt to the new
hardware and firmware architecture. This OA-based architecture supports integrated nPartition
and virtual partitioning. nPartitions can be further subdivided using virtual partitions. You interact
with both partition types in the same way. User interfaces for routine operations such as boot,
shutdown, and reset are common across vPars and nPartitions, and are available from both the
OA user interfaces. Each virtual partition has a separate console and presents the UEFI Shell just
like an nPartition. Operating System (OS) install operations and OS boot methods for an nPartition
and a virtual partition are the same. The core of partition management functionality now resides
on the management processor or OA.
A partition is identified by its unique number and name. The range of partition numbers for
nPartitions is 1 to 255, and the range of partition numbers for virtual partitions is 1 to 255. Partition
numbers cannot be modified but the name can be changed. nPartition names must be unique within
a complex, and virtual partition names must be unique within an nPartition. Both nPartitions and
virtual partitions have a state and a run-state. A state can be active or inactive. The runstates of
an nPartition or vPar are described in
NOTE: The terms "nPartition" or "nPar" and "virtual partition" or "vPar" are interchangeably
used throughout the document.

nPartitions

An nPartition is a hard partition that contains one or more blades, and zero or more I/O bays.
nPartitions can run a single OS (either a standalone OS or an HPVM host), or can be divided into
virtual partitions. An nPartition on an HP Superdome 2 system is similar to an nPartition on cell
based servers. On HP Superdome 2, you can create an nPartition without assigning any resources
(no blade or I/O bay resources assigned). However, you must assign resources to such an nPartition
before it can be activated or powered on for use. An nPartition provides electrical isolation.
You can use the OA to perform the following nPartition functions:
Create a new nPartition.
Modify an existing nPartition.
10 Partitioning in HP Superdome 2
The original Administrator password is available on a sticker on the OA module.
"Partition State and RunStates" (page 26).