The manufacturing default configuration is the initial partition setup of the managed system as received from your service provider.
When your system is in the manufacturing default configuration, you can install an operating system on the managed system and use the managed system as a nonpartitioned server. In this state, you do not need to manage the system using the Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM).
The POWER7® Hypervisor treats the default configuration as one logical partition with one partition profile. All of the physical hardware resources on the system are automatically assigned to this logical partition, and any new physical hardware resources that are added to the managed system are added automatically to this logical partition. The name of the logical partition is the serial number of the PS703 or PS704 blade server, and the name of the partition profile is "default". You do not need to make any partitioning changes on the server if you do not want to do so.
However, if you install the Virtual I/O Server as the first operating system, the system is in partition mode. You must then use the IVM or Virtual I/O Server command line interface to manage the managed system.