Minimum hardware configuration requirements for logical partitions

Each logical partition requires at least a certain amount of hardware resources. You can assign hardware resources directly to a logical partition, or you can set the logical partition to use the hardware resources that are assigned to another logical partition. The minimum hardware configuration requirements for each logical partition depend on the operating system or software installed on the logical partition.

The following table lists the minimum hardware requirements for logical partitions.

Table 1. Minimum hardware requirements for logical partitions
Minimum requirement	AIX® and Linux	IBM® i
Processor	1 dedicated processor or 0.1 processing unit, or 0.05 processing unit when the firmware is at level FW760, or later.	1 dedicated processor or 0.1 processing unit, or 0.05 processing unit when the firmware is at level FW760, or later. Note: HEA is not supported on POWER8® processor-based server.
Memory (physical or logical)	AIX 5.3 to AIX 6.0: 128 MB AIX 6.1 or later: 256 MB Linux: 128 MB	1GB plus 40 MB for each active logical Host Ethernet Adapter (LHEA)
I/O	Physical or virtual storage adapter (SCSI card) Physical or virtual network adapter Storage: AIX: 2 GB Linux: Approximately 1 GB	Load source Physical or virtual disk I/O adapter (IOA) Physical or virtual disk unit that is at least 17 GB in size Console: your choice of one of the following console types: Hardware Management Console (HMC) 5250 emulation (requires an HMC) Operations Console: Requires a LAN connection that supports Operations Console connections. The Operations Console LAN connection can be an embedded port or a LAN IOA. Alternate restart device: your choice of tape or optical. These devices connect to either a physical or virtual storage adapter. The optical device can be a physical or virtual device. Physical or virtual LAN adapter that can be used for serviceable event reporting and connection monitoring. At least one IBM i logical partition in the managed system must have a physical LAN adapter that the IBM i logical partition can use for serviceable event reporting and connection monitoring. You can then create a virtual LAN that connects the IBM i logical partition with the physical LAN adapter to the other logical partitions on the managed system, and bridge the physical LAN adapter to the virtual LAN. If the system is managed using an HMC, the physical LAN adapter must be able to communicate with the HMC so that serviceable event reporting can be routed through the HMC.

Last updated: Fri, July 05, 2019