Migration 5.2 ML 10 to 5.3 TL 11

[fbergenh]

Can somebody tell me if it is possible to go from AIX 5.2 ML 10 to AIX 5.3 TL 12 in two steps?

1) Migrate to base level AIX 53 from cd
2) Upgrade to 5.3 TL 11 via downloaded bff-files

One of our new clients are running AIX 5.2 on a production server and they want us to do the migration to the latest AX 5.3 TL. One of my colleague's mentioned that this is not possible in the above mentioned steps and that we should follow this path:

1) Migrate to base level AIX 53 from cd
2) Upgrade to 5.3 TL 1
3) Upgrade to 5.3 TL 2
4) Upgrade to 5.3 TL 3
5) Upgrade to 5.3 TL 4
6) Upgrade to 5.3 TL 5
7) Upgrade to 5.3 TL 12

Is this colleague correct or should it be possible to do the upgrade in on step?

Thanks in advance.
Frank

[Michael]

No. You dont have to update TL level by TL Level.

I would look at the alt_disk_install method. There should be a writeup here somewhere.

Basically
1. Backup AIX 5.2
2. Install the alt_disk_install fileset from AIX 5.3 media on your AIX 5.2 media
3. Free or add a new disk to system for the installation/migration
4. Perform the migration to the alt_disk
5. reboot system on new rootvg (AIX 5.3). AIX 5.2 disk will show as volume group old_rootvg
6. Use smitty update_all to update AIX to latest level
7. Update applications as needed (if seperate volume groups (i.e. not in rootvg - backup first)
8. Test, and test more
9. At anytime, if the process is showing complete failure, reboot on old_rootvg so you are active again, and repeat process with needed process or application corrections.

The whole process is more than two steps - but AIX steps are three:
a) alt_disk_install installation on AIX 5.2
b) perform alt_disk_install (migration) to new disk
c) after reboot to new disk, smitty update_all to latest version.

p.s. Dont forget! If you have POWER7 in house, you could also install AIX v7 and versioned WPAR and run the AIX 5.2 system in a versioned WPAR.

p.p.s. If you have a nim server with latest - and patched - lpp_source and spot, you should be able to do the migration in one step (i.e. skip update_all).