Managing conflicts between multiple users accessing a computer system having shared resources assigned to one or more logical partitions and one or more appliance partitions

Abstract

A management system for managing computer resources assigned by a hypervisor to one or more logical partitions and/or one or more appliance partitions in a multi-user computer system receives login information from a new user logging into the computer system through a service interface (e.g. a hardware management console) or a non-service interface, builds a conflict list, and sends the conflict list for presentation to the new user. The new user is notified of any users that are logged into any part of the computer system that could conflict with the new user's actions. Such users may be logged into the computer system through service and/or non-service interfaces. In one embodiment, the new user can choose to continue logging in irrespective of any conflicts shown. After choosing to continue, the new user is preferably requested to input an end-time. This end-time may be displayed, in turn, to all subsequent users that log into any part of the computer system that could cause conflict. The management system is preferably a component of the hypervisor.