Creating Affinity Logical Partitions

Depending on your managed system's configuration, you may be able to create a special group of logical partitions called affinity logical partitions. The process of creating a group of affinity partitions is similar to the process of creating logical partitions. The only difference is that the system does processor and memory assignments for you. I/O resources are still assigned by the user, however. To determine if your managed system is capable of running affinity logical partitions, check your managed system's properties.

To create an affinity logical partition, do the following:

  1. In the Contents area, select the managed system.
  2. From the Selected menu, choose Affinity Logical Partitions.
  3. Select Setup. The affinity logical partition setup wizard opens.
  4. In the first window of the setup wizard, select the type of affinity partitions that you want to create.
  5. Click OK.
  6. In the second window of the setup wizard, type a name for the first affinity partition that you are creating. Use a unique name that is up to 31 characters long.

    In the second field, enter a default profile name.

    Select which boot mode this affinity partition's profile will use.

    Select the Set Service Authority check box if you want this partition to be used by service representatives to perform system firmware updates.

    Enter this information for each of the affinity partitions you want to create. To select another affinity partition, click on the appropriate ALPAR tab at the top of the window.
  7. Click Next.
  8. The left side of the new window now displays the I/O drawers available and configured for use. To expand the I/O tree to show the individual slots in each drawer, click the icon next to each drawer. Because the HMC groups some slots, if you attempt to assign a member of one of these "grouped" slots to a profile, the entire group is automatically assigned. Groups are indicated by a special icon named Group_XXX.

    Click on the slot for details about the adapter installed in that slot. When you select a slot, the field underneath the I/O drawer tree lists the slot’s class code and physical location code.

    Note: The slots in the I/O Drawers field are not listed in sequential order.
  9. Select the slot you want to assign to this affinity partition's default profile and click Add. If you want to add another slot, repeat this process. Slots are added individually to the profile; you can only add slots one at a time, unless they are grouped. Minimally, add a boot device to the required list box.

    If you want to install an operating system on this partition using the managed system's CD-ROM drive, assign the CD-ROM to this partition profile.

    Select I/O slots for each new affinity partition's default profile. To select another affinity partition profile, click on the appropriate ALPAR tab at the top of the window.
  10. If you want to change the configuration for any affinity logical partition, click Back. Otherwise, click Finish to create the group of affinity logical partitions.

The new affinity partitions, along with the default profiles you just created, should appear in the Managed System tree in the Contents area. A new system profile, containing all affinity logical partitions' default profiles, is also created.

After affinity logical partitions have been created, operating systems must be installed on each partition. Refer to the installation information shipped with your operating system.