APW works with both hard and soft partitions:
Hard partitions do not share CPU, memory, or I/O resources. In other words, the boundaries of these partitions are hard. An instance of an operating system can run in each hard partition; these instances run independently of each other.
By default, each ES47/ES80/GS1280 hard partition has one default subpartition. The default state of a GS80/GS160/GS320 hard partition is no soft partitions. Partitions running the OpenVMS Galaxy operating system can have multiple soft partitions. Soft partitions share the CPU, memory, and I/O of the hard partition.
APW has the following features:
Whenever APW changes your hardware's configuration, APW also changes the AMS configuration by adding, modifying and removing consoles as needed to match your partition configuration.
APW can run while a partition is running an operating system. You cannot commit a partition map that reassigns hardware to or from a hard partition that is running an operating system, but you can create and save that partition map. If any soft partition within a hard partition is running an operating system, APW will not allow you to commit changes to that hard partition.
You can create new Partition Maps or modify existing ones, adding or removing partitions.
The Validate button can be used to review proposed changes and let you know of any problems such changes could cause.
You can save the Partition Map to a file or click on the Commit button to make the desired changes. No changes are made prior to selecting the Commit action.