Some more classic reminders:
Read the Memo To Users for each release between V5R4 and 7.5. These will help outline some changes which may affect you. I can give you examples but you'd be better off just to do it.
Check out the Upgrade Planning site. This customer may be relying upon some LPP's which are discontinued. Or they may be relying upon hardware which no longer is available (modem connections, fax lines, optical disk library, ascii workstation connections, to name a few). https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/upgrade-planning
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Robert Berendt IBMChampion
Business Systems Analyst, Lead
Dekko
Fort Wayne
260-599-3160
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Original Message:
Sent: Tue September 17, 2024 08:20 AM
From: Aaron Brown
Subject: As400 Upgrade Path
Lots of great information already listed - the observability change points are crucial due to third party software. That Redpaper will assist in the planning around that aspect, and the discussions with software vendors.
The tape media compatibility is a large issue as well. If you can move to some manner of virtual tape library - you can likely overcome this issue without too much difficulty. Otherwise, you would need to look at tape compatibility - and potentially purchase some equipment to fill the gaps (such as LTO-2 to LTO-6 as an example).
Another topic - does that 9405-520 have any specialized hardware that will not be supported in newer Power platforms? The customer will want to solution for that aspect if needed.
I saw mentioned about the need to have varying models of Power hardware. This is true, but you can minimize this - there are Power 9 models that will support V7R1 (using VIOS and restricted I/O mode). You could look at the used market for a system that has V7R1 licenses, and then get moved up to a supported level of OS using normal OS upgrades. This is not the cheapest solution, but it might simplify these OS upgrades due to the X+2 supported pathways.
Another thought that I did not see discussed yet - the timing of this upgrade path. Unless the customer has already requested 6.1 and/or 7.1 keys for their existing 520 system (while still under support) - they are going to be very limited in their time window of getting moved up to newer OS versions. Some of the LPP licenses will terminate at 40 days - which does not leave much time for testing these updates.
Taking another perspective, I would also suggest contacting a hosting provider. They are likely to have the experience around this scenario, and with performing these type of upgrades/migrations. Furthermore - they will likely have several iterations of Power hardware to facilitate this type of testing and migration work. This could allow the customer to keep their business running while they test these updates and migration methods to get a newer version. (Many times, a hosting provider has all OS level of license keys for each supported OS level on a Power server. This alone gives more time for testing on the different versions of OS and third party software.)
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Aaron Brown
Original Message:
Sent: Mon September 16, 2024 02:57 AM
From: Mohammad Safir
Subject: As400 Upgrade Path
Hi, I have recently come across a customer who is using OS/400 V5R4M0 on 9405-520 machine. what could possibly be upgrade path for this customer to adapt the latest version of IBM i and Power 10 platform.
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Mohammad Safir
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