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  • 1.  CR2 HMC managing Power8 with 5.3 LPAR

    Posted Thu January 12, 2023 10:29 AM
    Hello - I have a customer that will be managing Power10's (E1080's and E870's) with CR2 HMC's - The E870 are on the latest firmware level - The E870's have  a few  AIX 5.3 Lpar's on it.- Please advise if HMC functionality on these partitions (e.g., Dynamic Allocation of resources, Live Partition Mobility, etc. will work and there will be no loss in connectivity.

    Regards 
    Kishore Rampersad

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    Kishore Rampersad
    IBM South Africa
    Sandton
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  • 2.  RE: CR2 HMC managing Power8 with 5.3 LPAR

    Posted Fri January 13, 2023 06:50 AM

    HI,
    the old POWER8 9119-MME supports the V10 R2 M1030 Release-which is also required for the 9080-HEX
    https://esupport.ibm.com/customercare/flrt/matrix?domain=mtm=9080-MME&pkey=pwr

    The installed OS Level has in general no dependencies on the installed HMC Level. Since AIX 5.3 is already End of Life and was only supported on POWER8 with a special contract https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?htmlfid=897/ENUS216-155&infotype=AN&subtype=CA
    there is no more assistance, testing or so whatever. 
    DLPAR, LPM in general should work, but there is absolutely no more support for that EOL Level. Whatever fails with those old AIX 5.3 LPARs won't be handled by IBM SW Support anymore. 
    Since you can't LPM any AIX 5.3 LPAR to a POWER10 you should not see any real issues when using those EOL LPARs on the POWER8. 

    Greetings

    Marc-Eric Kahle
    AIX / PowerVM Support



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    Marc-Eric Kahle
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: CR2 HMC managing Power8 with 5.3 LPAR

    Posted Fri January 13, 2023 10:37 AM
    I think you're going to find problems with RMC/RSCT versions on AIX 5.3 that will preclude most DLPAR operations.  I'm going completely from memory here from several years ago when I was desperately trying to sunset some old AIX 5.3 lpars.  I recall an RSCT package version change that was not backward compatible with AIX 5.3.  Since RSCT/RMC is the backbone of the connectivity that enables HMC communication to the LPAR, any operation that requires an RMC connection (most of them) are going to fail.

    You may be able to make it work as a completely inert partition that can only be changed with a reboot that may or may not ever come back up.  You should do everything you can to avoid this.  If you have a functional backlevel HMC setup now, reconsider moving the E870 to a new HMC.  Once moved to a new version, there is no going back to an older HMC.

    Years ago, migrating AIX 5.3 lpars to workload partitions under a newer AIX version was an option.  I don't know if that is still possible given the way out of date support for AIX 5.3, but it may be worth researching if you are stuck.


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    Vincent Greene
    IT Consultant
    Technology Services
    IBM
    Vincent.Greene@ibm.com


    The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
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    Original Message