HP Integrity BL870c Server-Blade - Manual (Page 20)

5 Creating and configuring nPartitions — use cases
This chapter describes the supported use cases to create a new partition, as well as cases for
changing the partition size by adding blades to or removing blades from a partition.
Recall that a fixed number of blades are always present within the Blade Link Domain. This can
only be altered by scaling up the physical Blade Link Domain size by employing a field upgrade.
Note that for the Blade Link Domain architecture, the default configuration is a single server
comprising all of the blades in the domain. Also, it is not possible to have any of the blades within
the Domain not assigned to a partition, i.e., in an unassigned state.
NOTE: All blades assigned to a partition must be physically adjacent within the Blade Link
Domain. Further, for a four blade (BL4) Blade Link Domain, the second and third blades cannot
be placed into a separate partition. As an example, for a 4-blade Blade Link Domain occupying
bays 1-4, the blades in bays 1 and 3 cannot be combined into a partition as they are not physically
adjacent.
The nPartition configuration menu supports partitioning the Integrity BL890c i4 into five possible
configuration choices, where each unique letter represents the existence of a partition:
AAAA, AACC, ABCC, AACD, ABCD
For a Blade Link Domain composed of two blades, two choices are possible:
AA and AB
Eight Use cases exist for configuring blades into partitions within the Blade Link Domain:
Table 1 Use Cases
Comment Description Case
System administrator re-assigns blade
resources from an existing nPartition to
create a new nPartition. Create a new nPartition (by scaling
down an existing partition). Case A
System Administrator re-assigns blade
resources from an existing nPartition to
an existing or new partition. Scale down a partition (reassign
blades to other partitions). Case B
System Administrator re-assigns
additional blade resources to an
existing nPartition. Scale Up a Partition (add blades from
other partitions). Case C
System administrator invokes nPar UI
command without changing partition No change. Display only. Case D
assignments, though he may wish to
manage partition locks. See Chapter
3.
System administrator swaps physical
blade resources across partitions or
within partition. Physical blade swap Case E
System administrator reactivates a
previously active partition. See Chapter
6. Create and restore Case F
System administrator places a faulted
blade in its own partition for isolation.
See Chapter 9. Blade isolation Case G
nPars enabled and number of blades
increased Scaleup via blade upgrade Case H
20 Creating and configuring nPartitions — use cases