Thanks for all the suggestions. Using your recommendations I determined the
following...
Our server firmware is at SF240_358 PTF ID MH01088
The Firmware Update Policy is *HMC
Our HMC software is at v6 release 1.3, build 20080112.1 Fix MH01082
From this info it appears, according to the Supported HMC and Server code
combination panel, we can upgrade our HMC to v7r7.2
I checked the FLRT (Fix Level Recommendation Tool) but our system 9406-520
does NOT appear. Any ideas on what that means?
I looked up our HMC and found it is a 7310-C04. Looking that up I found
that it is only designed to manage Power4 and Power5 systems. So I could
not expect this old HMC to manage our current system and our new incoming
Power7 box. I will have to replace the old HMC anyway, and use the new HMC
to manage the old 520 and new 8202-E4B. The new HMC (7042-CR6) is designed
to manage Power5 and later systems.
Anything I am still overlooking?
Thanks again for the advice.
Tom Garvey
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pete Massiello
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 7:58 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: HMC Console necessary?
I agree with Larry. Not only is this a bad idea, it's a stupid idea
(sorry). I have so many customers with HMC's and not one of them has a
problem. I bet you haven't upgraded the HMC since it was installed. What
version are you on? Please don't tell us you are on V4 or V5 and you are
complaining. It's probably time that you did an upgrade/install to V7
(you might only be able to go to 7.3 and not 7.7 if your machine is a very
old desk side HMC)? I don't know of any flaky, fragile, or limping HMC's.
Now, the earlier HMC's didn't have as much memory, CPU, and disk space as
the newer ones have, but they still run fine. I think the HMC is such a
great tool to manage and administer your machine that I would put an HMC
onto every box that we sell. We have all our Power5, Power6, and Power7
machines in the office controlled by one of our HMCs. Why, because it makes
life easier. Even some of the smaller Power5 boxes that we don't LPAR have
an HMC.
The 10K is because you are purchasing the pullout keyboard and monitor. I
have customers who don't even have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor attached
to their HMC. If they need to use it locally, they bring a "crash cart" up
to the rack and connect. If you have a KVM use that. Spend the 4,000 on
the HMC, but skip the keyboard and monitor if you want to save money. Don't
forget you need SWMA (RCP) and HWMA on the HMC as well, but that is
extremely inexpensive.
--
Pete Massiello
iTech Solutions
http://www.itechsol.com
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Administrators
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DrFranken
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 9:43 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: HMC Console necessary?
Well the obvious of course, you cannot do any changes to any partition.
You would need to change the system to OS managed for FSP Firmware and
designate one of the partition as a service partition BEFORE you do away
with the HMC. You will also need to convert the console to LAN console (most
likely anyway) or you won't have a console. You also will have NO way of
seeing SRC codes for a partition because when there is more than one they
don't show on the panel. Also if you ever PWRDWNSYS one of the partitions
the only way to get it back up is to PWRDWNSYS the other one and the system
itself and then restart the entire machine. This will only work if you have
both partition set to autostart. You could find yourself unable to do a
manual IPL and would NOT be able to ever restore the system from tape should
that be needed.
In short my opinion on removing the HMC is: Bad Idea.
Personally I would move in the new HMC and manage both systems with it.
You say it's 'Fragile' but don't say what that means. Is it old, is way
behind on fixes or versions? Has it been mistreated (i.e. overheated,
powered off abnormally multiple times, never backed up?) I have found the
HMC to be the best console ever. I also suspect the $10K Price is for both
an HMC AND a new flat panel with keyboard. The old one of those normally
works just fine with the new HMC and that will save you a bunch.
- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis.
On 12/7/2010 4:53 PM, Thomas Garvey wrote:
Can anyone tell me what difficulty we would have if we did away with
our
HMC
Console to operate our Model 520? It's become very fragile, limping
along,
and it seems we only need it to shut down (and start up) our two
partition 520. We have never used it to reconfigure the two partitions.
Is there some other way we would be able to manage the two partitions
WITHOUT the HMC?
Along the same lines, we are working with IBM to configure a new
8202-E4B and my prejudice against a new HMC is showing. I believe we
need it to be able to configure and manage the micro-partitions we
will be needing on
the
new box, but is there any other solution? Perhaps a remote software
method
to do what the HMC does? Maybe a Virtualization manager? The new HMC
adds
up to almost $10K for what (I believe) amounts to a glorified PC that
runs
a
single application, the System Manager. We can't even use it for
anything else. We don't have a single PC that costs that much. We
know that the
new
HMC could be used to manage both the old and new systems, but maybe we
could
do away with both HMC's?
Any thoughts, or am I just exposing my ignorance?
Thomas Garvey
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