Quote:
Originally Posted by
firefox111
The problem is, one of our customers needs to run old AIX5.2 and 5.3 Systems on P7 Hardware (applications do not run on AIX6 or AIX7). The only way to do this is to use the versioned WPAR's. And after all he wants these applications to be highly available
OK. I could say i pity you but my compassion wouldn't help you at all.
AIX 5.3 (ML12) LPARs definitely run natively on P7 hardware if you activate "Power6-compatibility mode" (or something such, can't remember). I have had exactly this some 2 years ago, when we migrated LPARs from some P5-systems to a p795.
In the meantime this is not mentioned any more because 5.3 reached its end of life, but whatever you do, you won't reach any supported state at all anyways. Not with 5.3 and even less so with 5.2 (which was, along with 5.1, a big PITA even back then when it was supported - if i were to decide between 5.1 and 5.2 at the point of a gun, i'd prefer pulling the trigger).
My suggestion is to create LPARs and try starting them with 5.3 and 5.2 respectively and see how far it gets you. If HACMP comes into play anyways this is an additional reason not to use WPARs. I couldn't even imagine building a cluster from WPAR nodes.
Another question: why don't you try to get some P6- or P5-hardware which ran AIX 5.x for years? What is the reason for needing a P7? I suppose you don't have performance problems when the software is built for AIX version 5.2, have you? It must have run with a p690 ("Regatta"), which was the high end back then when AIX 5.2 was modern, no?
I hope this helps.
bakunin