topic Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not in Operating System - HP-UX

Vpar Boot Disk or Not

Dan Matlock_1 — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:14:30 GMT

I am new to Vpars, so here's a dumb question.... Does the Vpar require a dedicated boot disk like the Npar? I assume it does, but some here think Vpar is like vmware which does not. I know HP will be releasing their version of 'vmware', but Vpar is different than that..

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

Coolmar — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:20:24 GMT

I found the following which might help:

Virtual Partitions (vPars) you can take almost any HP 9000 server and turn it into many "virtual" computers. These virtual computers can each be running their own instance of HP-UX and associated applications. The virtual computers are isolated from one another at the software level. Software running on one Virtual Partition will not affect software running in any other Virtual Partition. In the Virtual Partitions you can run different revisions of HP-UX, different patch levels of HP-UX, different applications, or any software you want and not affect other partitions.

There are some base requirements that must be met in order to run vPars on your system. At the time of this writing, the following minimum requirements must be met for each vPar on your system:

Minimum of one CPU.

Sufficient memory to run HP-UX and any other software that will be present in the vPar.

A boot disk off which HP-UX can be booted. At the time of this writing it is not possible to share bus adapters between vPars. Therefore, a separate bus adapter is required for each of the vPars.

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

melvyn burnard — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:29:12 GMT

Each Vpar MUST have it's own boot disk, and this disk must be connected using one of the I/O cards that you assisgn to the Vpar.
You CANNOT share I/O cards or boot discs across Vpars.

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

Dan Matlock_1 — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 20:49:17 GMT

Wasn't part of the 'plan', but we have a rx8640 w/3 cell boards and 2 Npars (2 cells on one Npar, and 1 cell on 2nd Npar).

They want to add 4th cell board with mem/cpu to 2 cell Npar, BUT configure it as Vpar.

Once cell is add to prim. Npar, believe it will wake up with 3 cells. Not sure how i can separate it out as Vpar without 'Vparing' the Npar 0 instance.

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

melvyn burnard — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 23:49:01 GMT

"They want to add 4th cell board with mem/cpu to 2 cell Npar, BUT configure it as Vpar.

Once cell is add to prim. Npar, believe it will wake up with 3 cells. Not sure how i can separate it out as Vpar without 'Vparing' the Npar 0 instance."

The simple answer is you cannot do this unless you install Vpars on Npar0 and then create Vpars using the existing hardware (cells etc) for your first Vpar, and then use the new (3rd) cell and some of the I/O cards in Npar0 to create a 2nd Vpar in the Npar.

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

Dan Matlock_1 — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:12:59 GMT

sorry if not explaining clearly, but think your on to the situation.
Bottomline is that we have 2 Npars (0 & 1), forget 1 for now.
Npar 0 is production /w 2 Cells, they "planned" to add another cell making 3.... Then once system boots 'spin' off the 3rd Cell into a Vpar.
Real question is? Is that possible without (other than reboots) affecting the original Npar 0 Production ENV? OR do we have to rebuild 2 Vpars? I.E. re-ignite the Prod. ENV.
I think they assume we can leave Npar untouched and just add 1 single Vpar, but I think (no nothing about Vpars) we have to 'spin' off the prod. ENV into its own Vpar with its orignal resources, and 2nd Vpar for the new Cell.
If my assumtion is correct, then assume that we can configure Npar 0 for 2 Vpars and then simply configure Vpar0 with the 2 Cells and boot the prod ENV backup without re-install.... Hope anyway.

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

Torsten. — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:40:28 GMT

Hi,

a vpar (or more vpars) must reside within a npar (it is like a "virtual npar").

So you need to run all instances in a npar as a vpar!

But you can run a "plain" npar and a vpar environment in another npar in the same machine (1 machine, 2 npars).

To read more about the concept, please go to http://docs.hp.com/en/oshpux11iv2.html#Virtual%20Partitions

and read the documentation.

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

Zinky — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:43:01 GMT

Dan, your last post was really confusing! Could you re-state once more?

You have 2 nPars you say. nPar0 which is a 2 cell nPar and nPar1 which is a single cell. You want to add another cell 3 to the mix on nPar 0.

I still do not understand how vPars come into the picture. Do you actually have a vPar on any of the nPars?

But If I am getting it right, you actually do not have a vPAr yet and that new cell to be added on nPAr0 is being requested to be a separate vPar.

So in this case, the only way you can proceed is actually convert nPar0 to be a vPar.. And yes you will need to have separate bootdisks (SAN Boot will do) as well as separate IO and network HBAs...

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

Torsten. — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:55:55 GMT

Perhaps you should run and attach a

parstatus

vparstatus -v

to clarify your current config.

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

Zinky — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 15:00:18 GMT

And conversion actualy is easy! We can even walk you through it!

1.) Add Cell 3 to nPar0
2.) Create bootdisks (Ignite, etc.) on what will become your vPar bootdisks.
3.) Boot each bootdisk enironment and install vPar software.
4.) Carve your vPars per your HBA, CPU, Memory and Boot allocations
5.) Boot VPMON
6.) Start your vPars

Re: Vpar Boot Disk or Not

Dan Matlock_1 — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:29:29 GMT

Nelson, Your assume is correct, 2 Npars now with no Vpars as of yet. Thanks all for the info.