Each of a plurality of partitions within a logical partitioned data processing system is configured for an inter partition communication area (IPCA) allocated from partition's own system memory. Each partition's IPCA combined together forms a non-contiguous block of memory which is treated as a virtual shared resource (VSR). Access to VSR is controlled by hypervisor to maintain data security and coherency of the non-shared resources of a partition. Messages are written to and read from VSR under a specific partition's IPCA for inter partition communication. No physical shared or non-shared resources are involved during inter partition communication, hence no extra overhead on those resources, thus achieving optimized performance during inter partition communication.