The Virtual Partition Manager is a feature of i5/OS® that allows you to create and manage one i5/OS logical partition and up to four Linux® logical partitions on a single IBM® eServer™ i5 server.
To use the Virtual Partition Manager, you must first install i5/OS on an unpartitioned server. After you install i5/OS, you can initiate a console session on i5/OS and use Dedicated Service Tools (DST) or System Service Tools (SST) to create and configure Linux logical partitions. i5/OS controls the resource allocations of the logical partitions on the server.
This figure illustrates the i5/OS logical partition and the Linux logical partitions that are managed by the i5/OS logical partition. The twinaxial console connects to the i5/OS logical partition, and you can use DST or SST to create and configure the Linux logical partitions on the server.
When you use the Virtual Partition Manager to partition an IBM eServer i5 server, DST and SST are the only tools that you can use to create and manage the logical partitions. You cannot use iSeries™ Navigator to create or manage logical partitions on an IBM eServer i5 server. However, the console session that you use to access DST or SST can be initiated using either iSeries Operations Console (LAN or direct attach) or a twinaxial console.