Assigning the virtual serial number to a logical partition

When the Power® Systems Firmware level is FW950, or later and the HMC is at a Version 9.2.950, or later, you can assign a virtual serial number (VSN) to the logical partition. The virtual serial number has seven digits and it is a unique string. When the logical partition is in the Running state, you cannot change the virtual serial number.

A list of virtual serial numbers is activated in the POWER® Hypervisor by using a Capacity on Demand (CoD) code that is provided by IBM®. The virtual serial number is used for licensing and for tracking the usage of the logical partition.

You can view all the virtual serial numbers that are in the virtual serial number pool by using the lsvsn command. Also, you can use thelssyscfg command to view whether the system supports the virtual serial number capability. If you want to create a logical partition with a virtual serial number, you must specify a value for the attribute virtual_serial_num. The value can be any one of the options: none, auto, or VSN. The value none is the default option. If you specify the value as auto, the Hardware Management Console (HMC) assigns the first virtual serial number from the list of virtual serial numbers to the logical partition.

You can use the chsyscfg command to change the VSN setting for a logical partition that is in the Not activated state. If the logical partition is assigned with a virtual serial number, you can change the value only to none. However, if the logical partition does not have a VSN assigned, you can choose the option to automatically assign a virtual serial number or specify a virtual serial number for the logical partition.

If you want to transfer the virtual serial number from one managed system to another managed system, you can use the xfervsn command. The virtual serial number that is transferred to the target system is removed from the unassigned VSN list of the source system and is added to the unassigned VSN list of the target system. However, if the destination system is not managed by the same Hardware Management Console (HMC) that is managing the source system, you must specify the IP address or the hostname of the HMC that is managing the destination system. Also, you may specify the username of the destination HMC. Use the rmvsn command to remove an unassigned VSN from the VSN pool.