Micro-Partitioning
| Industry | Computer technology |
|---|---|
| Founder | IBM |
| Products | Logical partitioning technology for POWER5 and POWER6 systems |
Micro-Partitioning represents a type of logical partitioning developed by IBM specifically for systems equipped with the POWER5 processor. Often referred to as shared processor partitions, these differ from dedicated processor partitions in the way CPU usage is allocated and overseen by the POWER Hypervisor (PHYP). The PHYP is utilized on all IBM POWER5 and POWER6 platforms to operate partitions.
The POWER Hypervisor is responsible for managing time slicing, handling hardware interrupts, distributing resources dynamically among various operating systems, and scheduling workloads within logical partitions.
Upon activation of a shared processor partition, the logical partition (LPAR) receives a guaranteed processing capacity and a set number of virtual processors, determined by configuration settings and resource availability. This allocation is sourced from a common pool of shared processors.
The minimum processing allocation per virtual processor corresponds to one-tenth of a physical core, with precision down to one-hundredth. Scheduling of virtual processors on physical cores by PHYP occurs within 10 millisecond time slices. Shared processor partitions may be configured as capped, restricting usage to the assigned capacity, or uncapped, permitting utilization up to 100% beyond the allocated virtual processors.
Partitions enabled with DLPAR functionality have the ability to modify their virtual processor count and processing capacity dynamically.