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Using Hard and Soft Partitions on OpenVMS Systems  



Hard partitioning is a physical separation of computing resources by hardware-enforced access barriers. It is impossible to read or write across a hard partition boundary, and there is no resource sharing between hard partitions.

Soft partitioning is a separation of computing resources by software-controlled access barriers. Soft partitions (subpartitions in some contexts) enable the sharing of hardware resources among several operating systems. Read and write access across a soft partition boundary is controlled by the operating system or applications. OpenVMS Galaxy is an implementation of soft partitioning.

How customers choose to partition their new AlphaServer ES or GS series systems depends on their computing environments and application requirements. When planning for partitioning, the amount of memory required by the applications and which operating system to run should be considered. When deciding how to configure an OpenVMS system that supports partitioning, look at the following questions:


 
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