How to differentiate between a standalone LPAR and a VIOC (which again is a lpar)?

There can be configurations in IBM Server wherein a

       standalone partition is created on some supported IBM Server 

Or

       A VIOS - VIOC LPARs created.

Now in both cases they are lpars. But if I want to differentiate b/w a standalone LPAR vs an VIOC LPAR how can I do..?

On a standalone LPAR:

#prtconf -L
1 06-2D4G

On a VIOC LPAR:

#prtconf -L
4 <hostname>

Hope I made myself clear with my question..?

I have never heard the term standalone LPAR. The very name Logical Paritition means it is not a physical contruct. An IBM stand alone server is a physical entity that cannot be partitioned (these are usually older models, current models with appropriate licensing support virtualization). Perhaps you mean the case where an IBM server that supports partitioning has only 1 LPAR that has all they physical resources. A VIOS (virtual IO server) is a custom LPAR that can be used to give other LPARS virtual resources. The VIOS is assigned the physical resources of the IBM server (like a physical adapter) and then the VIOS can create a virtual adapter (like vSCSI) and map it to a client LPAR.

The "real magic" in Virtual Based systems is what is know as the hypervisor. IBM servers support PHYP and OpenKVM (for linux OpenPower). The hypervisor is a layer between physical resources of a server and the logical partitons (LPARS).

---------- Post updated at 12:33 ---------- Previous update was at 12:27 ----------

about the prtconf command:, a physical system would return "-1 NULL"

   -L
        Displays LPAR partition number and partition name if this is an LPAR partition, otherwise returns
        "-1 NULL".

VIO client (VIOC) means, that the LPAR has at least some resources from VIO server (VIOS). Because VIOS provides only I/O resources to LPARs, it can be:

  • virtual SCSI (VSCSI)
  • virtual FC (VFC)
  • virtual Ethernet
    Just look at the output of lsdev command and you'll find, if the LPAR uses some resources provided by VIOS or not.