1.3.6 Partitions

Partitions are used to support the side-by-side installation of multiple configurations of a COM+ object class. Each partition is uniquely identified by a GUID known as the partition ID. An object class can have several versions of its configuration installed on a server, one per partition. A partition contains at most one version of an object class.

Every machine has at minimum one partition, the global partition, which contains the default configuration for every object class on the machine. The global partition serves as the default partition when no criteria, such as a client-specified partition, exist to choose any other partition.

The partition of an object class is determined during the object activation request; it can be chosen automatically by an implementation on behalf of the activating client, or the activating client can specify a partition ID as part of the activation request.

For historical reasons, the client's partition information is not sent across the network in the form of a context property; instead, it is sent as part of the base DCOM protocol. See the guidPartition field of the SpecialPropertiesData structure, as specified in [MS-DCOM] section 2.2.22.2.2.