Partition Members; Membership Types; Selecting A P_Key Value - HP zl User Manual

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InfiniBand partitions are comparable to hardware-enforced security features of conventional I/O
networking technologies, such as Ethernet VLANs and Fibre-Channel zones.

Partition Members

Without members, a Partition doesn't have meaning to the system. Ports are added to the Partition, and
become members of that Partition. Each port may be part of multiple partitions so that the system
administrator can define overlapping partitions as the situation requires.
At the time a port member is added to the Partition, the administrator must decide whether that
particular port will have full or limited membership.

Membership Types

A Partition contains a group of members, but different types of members can exist within a single
partition.
Partition memberships allows even further control because it defines communication within the
members of that group, and not just outside of it.
There are two types of partition memberships: full membership, and limited membership
Table 6-4: Membership Types
Port Membership Types
A Partition contains Partition Members (ports). A single Partition can
contain both full or limited members.
Full Membership
A full-membership Partition
Member can communicate
with all other Partition
Members, including other full
members, as well as limited
members.
About the Default Partition
The Subnet Manager automatically configures a default partition, which is always p_key ff:ff.
The default partition controls all connected ports, and by default , everything is a full-member of the
default partition. The default p_key cannot be altered or deleted as it is the controlling mechanism that
manages the configuration of all the partitions.

Selecting a P_Key Value

For a list of acceptable P_Key values, refer to
Upon creation, the p_key value is technically a 15-bit number. However, after the p_key is created and
the port(s) membership type has been established, the entire value becomes 16-bits. The most
significant bit (MSB) displays the type of membership (0 = Limited member, 1 = Full member).
When assigning a p_key value, you need to choose 4 hexidecimal numbers. However, because of the
way that the 16th bit is used, only certain numbers can be used for the left-most variable (the MSB). For
example, do not create two p_keys:
0 #:# # and 8#:# #, as they will be viewed as the same number by the system.
Limited Membership
A limited-membership Partition
Member cannot communicate with
other limited-membership partition
members. However, a limited
Partition Member can communicate
with a full member.
Table 6-6 on page 56.