Table of Contents

WPAR Introduction

What is a WPAR

A WPAR is a level higher in the virtualization. Available since AIX 6.1, it allows to host on a single OS up to 8000 WPAR. System WPAR can be used for most application that don't use physical resources.

WPAR has appear with AIX 6.1. There are 2 types of WPAR:

WPAR Improvements

WPAR improvements with the AIX 6.1 and later operating systems

AIX 6.1 Base Level (GA)- Initial support, including mobility using synchronous checkpoint/restart
- First WPAR manager release
AIX 6.1 TL1- Network File System (NFS) support for WPAR
AIX 6.1 TL2- Asynchronous mobility
- Per-WPAR routing
- Name-mapped network interfaces
- Network Installation Management (NIM) support for WPAR
AIX 6.1 TL3- Storage disk devices support
AIX 6.1 TL4- rootvg WPAR
- SAN mobility
- WPAR manager integration with IBM Systems Director
- VxFS support
AIX 6.1 TL5- WPAR Error Logging Framework (RAS)
AIX 6.1 TL6- Virtual SCSI (vSCSI) disk support
- WPAR migration to AIX 7.1
AIX 7.1 Base Level (GA)- Everything that is supported in AIX 6.1, plus Fiber Channel (FC) adapter support, Versioned WPARs running AIX 5.2, and Trusted Kernel extension support AIX version WPAR improvement
AIX 7.1 TL1- Versioned WPARs running AIX 5.3

Since AIX 6.1 TL4, you can create a system WPAR with his own rootvg (/usr and /opt not shared); this method is used on AIX 7.1 to virtualize WPAR in AIX 5.2 and 5.3.