System templates and Partition templates
System and partition templates specify the configuration of a system and of logical partitions on the system.
Features such as Templates, Manage PowerVM® and Manage Partition are available only when you login to the HMC with the Enhanced option. For more information, see Starting the HMC.
- System template
- Partition template
You can use system templates to define system configuration settings that include general system properties and virtual environment settings. You can use partition templates to specify logical partition settings that include general partition properties, processor and memory configuration, virtual networks and virtual storage configuration, logical Host Ethernet Adapters and logical single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) port settings. Templates do not contain target-specific information. Therefore you can use templates to configure any system or partition in your environment.
The single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) specification defines extensions to the PCI Express (PCIe) specification. SR-IOV allows virtualization of the physical ports of an adapter so that the ports can be shared by multiple partitions that are running simultaneously. For example, a single physical Ethernet port appears as several separate physical devices. To share the ports of an SR-IOV capable adapter, the adapter must first be enabled for the SR-IOV shared mode. After an adapter is enabled for SR-IOV shared mode, SR-IOV logical ports can be assigned to logical partitions.
System templates
System templates contain configuration information about resources such as system properties, shared processor pools, reserved storage pool, shared memory pool, physical I/O adapters, Host Ethernet Adapters, single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) adapters, Virtual I/O Server, virtual networks, virtual storage, and initial program load (IPL). Many of the system settings that you previously configured by using the Hardware Management Console (HMC) command-line interface or the HMC graphical user interface (GUI) version 7.9.0, or earlier can now be completed by using the Deploy System from Template wizard. For example, you can configure the Virtual I/O Servers, virtual network bridges, and virtual storage settings when you use the wizard to deploy a system by using a system template.
Partition templates
Partition templates contain details about partition resources, such as physical adapters, virtual networks, and storage configuration. You can create client partitions from the quick-start templates that are available in the template library or from your own user-defined templates. You can use the Deploy Partition template wizard to create AIX®, IBM® i, or Linux logical partitions. In previous releases, partitions were associated with profiles, which stored the configuration information for that partition. It was only possible to turn on a partition after you activated the partition by choosing a profile. With the Hardware Management Console (HMC) Version 8.1.0, Service Pack 1, or later, templates replace profiles. Similar to profiles, templates contain configuration details. Unlike profiles, you can use a single template once or many times. After you create a partition by using a template, the template does not retain any association with the partition you created. You need not use a template to create a new partition, however, using templates can simplify the partition creation process.
