HMC Upgrade Question


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Operating Systems AIX HMC Upgrade Question
# 1  
Old 12-03-2012
IBM HMC Upgrade Question

I have an HMC that I'm looking to upgrade from V7.3.4.0 SP2 to the latest version V7.7.6.0. I'm looking at the firmware levels of the systems attached to this HMC, and all of the systems have compatible firmware revisions but there are two that have been update recently and the platform IPL level is still showing the older/incompatible revision. However the Activated level is showing a compatible revision.

My question is, can I still upgrade the HMC software to the newest version? Or do I have to re-IPL the 2 systems in question?
# 2  
Old 12-03-2012
Managed systems have two sides to the firmware - temporary and permanent. I don't know if there is a way to manually move the temporary over to the permanent side, but I do know that moving it is the first step of any firmware upgrade. When I upgrade my HMC, I make sure that my that the side of the firmware my managed systems were booted from (usually the temporary side) are at firmware releases supported by the HMC code I'm going to install. If it all is compatible, then I do the upgrade. If your levels are all good with each other, you should be able to upgrade.
# 3  
Old 12-03-2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by kah00na
Managed systems have two sides to the firmware - temporary and permanent. I don't know if there is a way to manually move the temporary over to the permanent side, but I do know that moving it is the first step of any firmware upgrade. When I upgrade my HMC, I make sure that my that the side of the firmware my managed systems were booted from (usually the temporary side) are at firmware releases supported by the HMC code I'm going to install. If it all is compatible, then I do the upgrade. If your levels are all good with each other, you should be able to upgrade.
The firmware on the system is compatible. The problem is that because I did not re-IPL the system after upgrading, the HMC is seeing that the new firmware version is deferred till a re-IPL. However, the activated firmware version is that of the version I upgraded to.

I'm trying to find out if I need to re-IPL my managed systems for them to compatible with newer versions of HMC or if simply being the current activated version is good enough.
# 4  
Old 12-03-2012
My first advice in such cases is to get a maintenance window RIGHT NOW. Not because of this occasion but because of general reasons. What happens right now will happen time and again and you don't want to always go out of your way to do cover for the bad planning of others.

It is a long established fact that absolutely every hardware fails from time to time and every system needs some downtime from time to time - either for maintenance or for said failure. If a customer doesn't want such a downtime he will have to cover for the extra costs to have redundant failover systems (HACMP or whatever else) so that the downtime can can be hidden. If he doesn't want to cover for the extra costs, i in turn will not cover for his extra demands - this simple.

Regarding your original question: what is your hardware? Depending on the model it might have two service processors.

I hope this helps.

bakunin
# 5  
Old 12-04-2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by bakunin
Regarding your original question: what is your hardware? Depending on the model it might have two service processors.
They are both 8203-E4A's. I'm pretty sure they only have one service processor.
# 6  
Old 12-04-2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by acascianelli
They are both 8203-E4A's. I'm pretty sure they only have one service processor.
Yes, they have. In this case there is only the IPL. If the HMC upgrade would work without the IPL or not i am not sure, but you should press the issue nevertheless, to establish a clean status of your systems. If something happens because of them not being clean (pretty unlikely, but why take the risk?) nobody will take responsibility (like "i designed the system poorly and did not take such necessary downtimes into account") and all will point at you as the SA.

I hope this helps.

bakunin
# 7  
Old 12-04-2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by bakunin
Yes, they have. In this case there is only the IPL. If the HMC upgrade would work without the IPL or not i am not sure, but you should press the issue nevertheless, to establish a clean status of your systems. If something happens because of them not being clean (pretty unlikely, but why take the risk?) nobody will take responsibility (like "i designed the system poorly and did not take such necessary downtimes into account") and all will point at you as the SA.

I hope this helps.

bakunin
There is no failover/secondary service processor. There are 2 HMC ports, but I don't have 2 HMC's.
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. AIX

HMC Upgrade

Hi Experts So we have two data center .I upgraded the HMC in one datacenter, very easy no problem, but in the second datacenter we have dual HMC connection. I am looking at the document from the ibm documentation. I found something that I am not comfortable following. which is this : Physically... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: JME2015
2 Replies

2. Solaris

Solaris 11.2 upgrade question

Currently we are having solaris 11.1 SRU 11.1.21.4.1 installed on server. We need to upgrade it to solaris 11.2 SRU 11.2.9.5.0 Is it possible to upgrade to SRU 11.2.9.50 directly by downloading repo files or do I need to upgrade to 11.2 first and then upgrade to SRU 11.2.9.5.0? (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: sureshsun
1 Replies

3. AIX

PowerHA 5.5.0.4 on AIX 5.3 TL10 upgrade question

Hi all, I want to upgrade a clustered AIX 5.3 TL10 with PowerHA 5.5.0.4. To both AIX 6.1 and PowerHA 6.1 in an wasy way. Any guidelines or procedures in an easy way to accomplish this task safely? Note : fdown time is an acceptable option. (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: h@foorsa.biz
2 Replies

4. Solaris

Live upgrade question

I want to basically update an ABE that someone created a few months back. I'm sure stuff has changed since it was made, and I was going to delete it and create a new one. But from what I'm looking at, the lumake appears like it would be a faster approach. I want to use live upgrade to... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: BG_JrAdmin
0 Replies

5. AIX

Upgrade AIX without HMC

Hi all, i would like to know if it's possible upgrade AIX 5.3 to 6.1 on a LPAR without use the HMC. so i would like to know if i must use the console to do it or i can do all from the up&running system on LPAR. Thanks in advance. Mario (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: Zio Bill
4 Replies

6. Solaris

Solaris 9 upgrade question.

I have an old sun v890 server running solaris 9. Apparently we need to be running solaris 10. I don't know much about the server history, there isn't any documentation. I hesitant to rebuild from scratch and loose user configuration settings etc... How difficult is it to upgrade to solaris... (10 Replies)
Discussion started by: Kjons76
10 Replies

7. AIX

Hardware upgrade question

I have an IBM pseries 7028-6E1 server with a six drive bay that is currently plugged into the scsi backplane of the motherboard. I am going to install a PCIX Ultra320 scsi raid adapter, and swing the drive bay over to it. I am just wondering how this is going to work. Should I power the server... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: markper
1 Replies

8. AIX

ml upgrade question

Hello everybody, am new to AIX. can someone help me with below i was trying to do an ml upgrade on AIX5.2 from 01-09 when i do a lppchk -v, i get X11.base.rte 5.2.0.10 (usr: COMMITTED, root: not installed) i tried to remove the fileset using smitty remove and it says... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: karthikosu
1 Replies

9. Solaris

Upgrade question

Hi all, I hava an ULTRA-5 machine at work, runing Solaris8, and I'm thinking of downloading the free version of Solaris9, and runing an upgrade, is this possible? And the free version of Solaris 9, is the same as the payed version? Thx. (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: Zarnick
0 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question