Managing physical I/O devices and slots dynamically using the HMC

Managing physical I/O devices and slots dynamically

You can dynamically add, remove, and move physical I/O devices and slots to and from running logical partitions using the Hardware Management Console (HMC). This allows logical partitions to share infrequently used I/O devices (such as optical disk drives).

Logical partitions can have desired or required I/O devices or slots. When you specify that an I/O device or slot is desired (or shared), this means either that the I/O device or slot is meant to be shared with other logical partitions, or that the I/O device or slot is optional. When you specify that an I/O device or slot is required (or dedicated), then you cannot activate the logical partition if the I/O device or slot is unavailable or in use by another logical partition.

Note: If resources are moved dynamically, the configuration change is temporary and is not reflected in the partition profile. This means that all configuration changes will be lost the next time the partition profile is activated. If you want to save your new logical partition configuration, either change the partition profile or save the logical partition configuration to a new partition profile.