HP 9000 rp7410 nPartition Administrator's Guide, Second Edition - Page 18

NOTE: Specific firmware, operating systems, and management tools are required to supported mixing PA-RISC nPartitions and Intel® Itanium® 2 nPartitions on Superdome hybrid servers. For details, refer to HP Superdome Hybrid Servers, which is available from the http://docs.hp.com/ en/hw.html Web site under the HP 9000 Superdome Server and HP Integrity Superdome Server links. Hardware Components of nPartition-Capable Servers All hardware within a cell-based server-including all cells, I/O chassis, cables, cabinet hardware, fans, and power and utility components-is considered to be a server complex. Within each cell-based server cabinet are one or more cells, each of which contains processors and memory. Each cell-based server cabinet can have multiple I/O chassis that provide PCI slots for I/O cards. I/O resources also include any I/O devices attached to I/O cards within the I/O chassis. Core I/O is required for each nPartition to provide console services and other boot and management abilities. On first-generation cell-based servers and HP sx1000 chipset-based servers, core I/O is provided by a PCI card residing in an I/O chassis. On HP sx2000 chipset-based servers, core I/O is provided on each cell. On all cell-based servers, each nPartition has only one core I/O active at a time. Each I/O chassis connects to only one cell in the server. Some cell-based servers also support optional I/O expansion cabinets to provide additional I/O chassis. An HP Superdome complex can consist of one cabinet or two server cabinets, and can also include one or two I/O expansion cabinets (to provide additional I/O chassis). The two-cell HP servers consists of a single server cabinet only. The four-cell servers consists of a single server cabinet and can optionally include one I/O expansion cabinet to provide two additional I/O chassis. For details on listing and managing nPartition hardware components, see Chapter 7 (page 201). Administration Tools for nPartitions The main administration tools for nPartitions are Partition Manager, which provides a graphical interface, and the nPartition Commands, which provide a command-line interface. Some nPartition configuration and management also can be accomplished using the service processor interface to a cell-based server or by using the boot interface available through an nPartition console. Slightly different toolsets and capabilities are available the different server models. However, the same basic administration tasks are supported on all cell-based servers. The following tools can perform nPartition administration tasks: • Service Processor (MP or GSP) Menus Service processor menus provide a service interface for the entire complex. It allows access to all hardware and nPartitions defined within the complex. The service processor is always available, regardless of whether any nPartitions are configured or booted in the complex. The service processor includes the Command menu, nPartition consoles, nPartition Virtual Front Panels, nPartition console logs and the Chassis Log Viewer or Event Log Viewer (HP 9000 servers with HP PA-8700 processors have chassis logs, and servers based on the HP sx1000 or sx2000 chipset have event logs). See Chapter 4 (page 67). 18 Getting Started with nPartitions