Luna Concepts
HSM Partitions are independent logical HSMs that reside within the Luna SA appliance's physical K6 HSM. Each HSM Partition has its own data, access controls, security policies, and separate administration access, independent from other HSM partitions. Depending on the product, the HSM can contain multiple HSM partitions, and each partition can be connected to one or more Clients. Each HSM Partition has a special administration account, called the Partition Owner, who manages it.
HSM Partitions can be thought of as 'safe deposit boxes' that reside within the K6 Cryptographic Engine's 'vault'. The vault itself offers an extremely high level of security for all the contents inside; additionally, each safe deposit box also has it's own security and access controls; while the bank managers might have access to the vault, they still cannot open the individual safe deposit boxes, because only the owner of the safe deposit box holds the key that opens it.
Depending upon the configuration, each Luna SA can contain a number of HSM Partitions (according to your license agreement). Each HSM Partition has the capacity to hold data objects in numbers that depend upon the memory available, divided among number of partitions that your HSM allows. You can use the partition resize command to modify the sizes of individual partitions until all memory on the HSM is allotted. Thus, you could make room for some larger partitions by shrinking others. HSM Partitions can be dedicated to a single client, if desired, or multiple clients can all share access to a single HSM Partition.