Hardware requirements for logical partitions

Determine if your hardware resources meet the minimum requirements needed to partition your server. Evaluate each iSeries™ model to determine how your hardware will function once you partition your server.

During the process of planning for logical partitions, you must decide how you want to configure hardware resources. You can configure each server with logical partitions differently based on the following topics.

• Determine the possible number of logical partitions
  The number of processors you want to add to a logical partition depends on the planned workload for the partition and the desired level of performance.
• Select bus-level or IOP-level partitioning
  Depending on your needs, there can be advantages to partitioning your I/O resources in different ways.
• Choose dedicated or switchable IOP and devices for logical partitions
  Use this information to determine if dedicated or switchable IOP are right for your partitioned environment.
• Select dedicated or shared processors
  Partitions can use one of two modes of processors on the iSeries server. The results of your capacity planning and system hardware configuration will help you make a decision about utilizing dedicated processors or the shared processor pool for each partition.
• Perform dynamic movement of resources
  You can dynamically move processors, memory, and interactive performance.
• Evaluate the hardware limitations of the iSeries servers
  The 6xx, 7xx, Sxx, 8xx, and 890 n-way base servers support logical partitions (LPAR).
• Networking for logical partitions
  Logical partitions can use any of several communication methods to interact with other partitions or servers.