Resource Partitioning Requirements

Because the two operating systems run simultaneously on an NI Real-Time Hypervisor system, you must assign each hardware device to a specific operating system.

Use the NI Real-Time Hypervisor Manager to assign each device in the system to an operating system. The process of assigning devices to operating systems is subject to the following constraints:

• The NI Real-Time Hypervisor Manager automatically assigns the first CPU in the system to Windows and all remaining CPUs to Real-Time. You cannot repartition the CPUs.
• You must assign at least 128 MB of RAM to each OS (National Instruments recommends at least 1 GB total and at least 512 MB for Windows XP).
• Both operating systems must share a single physical hard drive with two partitions set up as follows:
  • One partition formatted with the NTFS file system running Windows XP (32-bit) and configured as the system partition
  • One partition formatted with the FAT32 file system, named LABVIEW_RT, and running NI ETS (RT)
• The NI Real-Time Hypervisor Manager automatically assigns the PXI trigger router to NI ETS (Real-Time). By default, the RT target has read/write access to all PXI trigger lines and Windows has read-only access. You can use NI Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX) to change specific trigger line reservations from RT to Windows. However, MAX does not enforce the exclusivity of trigger line reservations. Therefore, to prevent double-driving the trigger lines, you must ensure that each PXI trigger line is reserved by only one operating system.

  Caution  Improperly configuring trigger line reservations can result in hardware damage. Refer to the National Instruments Web site for information about configuring PXI trigger line reservations in a hypervisor system.

• You must assign each PCI interrupt request line (PIRQ) to only one operating system.

The following table includes the specific hardware resource partitioning requirements of the NI Real-Time Hypervisor: