Partition mobility

Partition mobility, a component of the PowerVM® Enterprise Edition hardware feature, provides the ability to migrateAIX®, IBM® i, and Linux logical partitions from one system to another. The mobility process transfers the system environment that includes the processor state, memory, attached virtual devices, and connected users.

The Suspend/Resume feature for logical partitions is supported on POWER8® processor-based servers when the firmware is at level FW840, or later.

Active partition migration, or Live Partition Mobility, allows you to migrate AIX, IBM i, and Linux logical partitions that are running, including the operating system and applications, from one system to another. The logical partition and the applications running on that migrated logical partition do not need to be shut down.

With HMC Version 7.7.2.0, or later, you can suspend an AIX or Linux logical partition with its operating system and applications, and store its virtual server state to persistent storage. At a later stage, you can resume the operation of the logical partition. With the HMC Version 7.7.3, or later, you can also suspend an IBM i logical partition. You can migrate suspended AIX, IBM i, and Linux logical partitions. The suspended partitions can be resumed on the destination server after the migration is complete.

Note: Suspend/Resume of logical partitions is excluded from the initial introduction of the POWER8 8286-41A, 8286-42A, 8286-42A, 8247-21L, and 8247-22L Power Systems™ servers. This feature is fully supported on other models of Power Systems servers with appropriate levels of the management console, firmware, and PowerVM.

Inactive partition migration, or cold partition mobility, allows you to migrate a powered off AIX, IBM i, or Linux logical partition from one system to another.

You can use the Hardware Management Console (HMC), or the Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) to migrate an active or inactive logical partition from one server to another. You cannot migrate a mobile partition from a system that is managed by an HMC to a system that is managed by IVM. Similarly you cannot migrate a mobile partition from a system that is managed by IVM to a system that is managed by an HMC.

Because the HMC always migrates the last activated profile, an inactive logical partition that has never been activated cannot be migrated. For inactive partition mobility, you can either select the partition state defined in the hypervisor, or select the configuration data defined in the last activated profile on the source server. Use the IVM to migrate a logical partition that has never been activated.

You cannot perform Live Partition Mobility that is both bidirectional and concurrent. For example:

When you are moving a mobile partition from the source server to the destination server, you cannot migrate another mobile partition from the destination server to the source server.
When you are moving a mobile partition from the source server to the destination server, you cannot migrate another mobile partition from the destination server to some other server.

Last updated: Tue, March 12, 2019