Overview
Workload Partitions (WPARs) are software-based virtualized operating system environments within a single instance of the AIX or Linux operating system. (These WPARs are referred to as 'containers' in the Linux community.) They isolate runtime resources including CPU, memory, user information, and file systems, specific to an application. To most applications, the WPAR appears as a booted instance of the operating system, and in general, applications can run without modification in the WPAR.
AIX WPARs have two variants: System WPARs are autonomous virtual system environments with their own private root file systems, users and groups, login, network space, and administrative domain. Applications running in system WPARs think they have their own private copy of the operating system. Application WPARs do not provide the highly virtualized system environment offered by system WPARs. Rather, they provide an environment that segregates applications and their resources to enable checkpoint, restart, and relocation at the application level.
Workload Partitions Manager
The WPAR Manager application provides a centralized, single point of administrative control for managing system and application AIX workload partitions.
The WPAR Manager web interface provides complete lifecycle management support for WPARs (Discovery, Create, Modify, Delete, and Remove). A complete task history is available for every action performed on a WPAR, including standard output and error.
The WPAR Manager provides:
- Cross-system management of WPARs, including lifecycle management
- Global load balancing with application mobility
- Web-based administration of basic WPAR operations and advanced management tasks
- Monitoring and reporting of WPAR performance metrics