Apparatus and method for automatically defining, deploying and managing hardware and software resources in a logically-partitioned computer system

A partition wizard allows automatically defining from a set of system requirements a solution profile that defines a combination of hardware and software in multiple logical partitions to satisfy the performance objectives. The solution profile may be used by an order processing system to automatically generate an order for a target computer system. The solution profile may also be used by a hardware management console to automatically create logical partitions on the target computer system, then may be used by an operating system install engine to automatically install a desired operating system in each of the logical partitions on the target computer system and to automatically install desired software into each of the logical partitions in the target computer system. The solution profile may also be used to manage the target computer system.