Physical and virtual hardware resources

This topic provides an overview of the physical and virtual hardware resources used for AIX^®, i5/OS^®, and Linux^® logical partitions including virtual adapters, processors, memory, expansion units, console options, I/O devices, 5250 CPW, and how each operating system implements virtual resources.

• Virtual adapters
  On IBM^® eServer™ hardware systems, virtual adapters, including Ethernet, Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI), and serial, interact with the operating system like any other adapter, except that they are not physically present.
• How each OS implements virtual resources
  This topic describes how AIX, i5/OS, and Linux logical partitions use virtual resources to share system resources and to communicate with each other.
• Processors
  This information describes how you can set the managed system to distribute its processing capacity among the logical partitions on the managed system.
• Memory
  Processors use memory to temporarily hold information. Memory requirements for partitions depend on partition configuration, I/O resources assigned, and applications used.
• Expansion unit
  You can add expansion units to many of the models to support additional features and devices. If you want to create logical partitions on your server, you may need to add an expansion unit that contains the additional hardware that you need for each logical partition.
• Terminal and console options for logical partitions
  You can initiate a terminal or console session to the logical partitions on your managed system using a variety of methods. Your choice of terminal or console depends on your operating system and business needs.
• I/O devices
  This topic discusses the different types of I/O devices used on your managed system, and how the I/O devices are added to logical partitions.
• 5250 CPW for i5/OS logical partitions
  5250 commercial processing workload (5250 CPW) is the capacity to perform 5250 online transaction processing (5250 OLTP) tasks on i5/OS logical partitions.