Patent ID: 7913251

Claim:
A logically partitioned data processing system, comprising: a processor unit; a plurality of logical partitions; a plurality of operating systems, each assigned to a separate one of the plurality of logical partitions; and a hypervisor, wherein the hypervisor provides a virtual copy of a shared hardware resource to each of the plurality of logical partitions by emulating a port device driver for each logical partition with a set of hypervisor firmware calls, and wherein the hypervisor is adapted to: a) receive first information from a first of the plurality of operating systems, wherein the first operating system is assigned to a first of the plurality of logical partitions, and provides the first information to the shared hardware resource and wherein the hypervisor identifies the first information as received from any one of the first logical partition or the first operating system, and b) receive second information from the shared hardware resource, wherein the hypervisor identifies the second information as received from any one of the first logical partition or the first operating system, wherein the hypervisor provides the second information to the first of the plurality of operating systems.