virtual partition vs hard partition

[Emilio Brusa]

Hi,
Which is the diferent between hard partition (npars)and virtual partition(vpars) in hp9000 series and which is better.

thanks!

E.

[Michael Tully]

What is better is determined by choice, depending on your site and the applications being used. The best way is to have a good read of the documentation.

Have a look from here:

vpars
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/T1335-90012/T1335-90012.html

npars
http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/5990-6739/5990-6739_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/5990-6739/00/00/34-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/5990-6739/00/00/34-toc.html&searchterms=npars&queryid=20040601-191550

[Ted Buis · Accepted solution]

Partition of either type is only available on some hp9000 systems. You can do hard partitioning (nPars) only on systems that use cell based technology such as the rp7410, rp7420, rp8400, rp8420, and Superdome. Hard partition is only on cell board boundaries and therefore has lower granularity, but does have better (electrical) isolation. Software partitioning or vPars has granularity to a single CPU core, but no less isolation. It is possible to do vPars within an nPar, so both are best together! You can have floater CPUs with vPars so you can dynamically assign CPU resources and even do this automatically with HP WorkLoad Manager.