Partition mobility

Partition mobility, a component of the PowerVM® Enterprise Edition hardware feature, provides the ability to migrate AIX®, 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.

By using Active partition migration, or Live Partition Mobility, you can 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 that are running on that migrated logical partition do not need to be shut down.

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

You can use the Hardware Management Console (HMC) to migrate an active or inactive logical partition from one server to another.

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 that is defined in the hypervisor, or select the configuration data that is defined in the last activated profile on the source server.

Consider the following information about bidirectional and concurrent partition mobility operations:
  • If you are using HMC V9.1.920, or earlier, to manage both the source server and the destination server, 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.
  • If you are using HMC V9.1.930, or later, to manage both the source server and the destination server, bidirectional and concurrent partition mobility operations are supported.

The HMC at version 7.8.0, or later, supports the Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) for identification of logical partitions and servers. During Live Partition Mobility, the UUID remains the same after the logical partition is migrated to the destination server. An HMC that is at version 9.1.0, or later, uses the UUID for identification of logical partitions instead of using the internal name of the logical partition, during partition mobility operations. Therefore, a user who has a predefined resource role continues to have access to the logical partition that is being migrated. For more information about resource roles, see Manage Task and Resource Roles.

When the HMC is at version 9.2.0, or later, you can perform a partition mobility operation when the source server and the destination servers have the same serial number. However, the machine type and the model number of the source and destination servers must be different. Also, the source server and the destination servers must be managed by different Hardware Management Consoles.