Limitations of system plan conversion

You can convert a system plan that you created on the Hardware Management Console (HMC) or by using the Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) for use in the System Planning Tool (SPT). However, there are some limitations in the data that the SPT can convert.

By setting up your system to optimize the hardware information that you capture in a system plan that you create by using the Hardware Management Console (HMC), you ensure that your system plan provides you with the most valuable information possible. It also ensures that you have the most usable configuration information possible when you convert the system plan for use in the SPT version 3.0, or later.

There are some limitations in the data that the SPT can convert at this time. The system plans that you create by using the HMC or the Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM) contain information about the hardware parts that are on your system. To convert one of these plans, the SPT maps the information about the parts back to the features that represent those parts.

In some cases, the HMC or the IVM plans do not contain enough information to enable the SPT to do the necessary mapping conclusively. For hardware parts with inconclusive mapping information, the SPT does one of the following to resolve the inconclusive mapping:

When possible, the SPT Conversion Wizard prompts you for additional information about the parts during the conversion process. For example, in the case of PCI cards, the wizard prompts you to provide a part identifier for the card or to select the card from a list.
The wizard identifies the part based on what it knows from the HMC or the IVM system plan, even if the information is not conclusive.
The wizard disregards the part if the level of information in the plan is insufficient to do any kind of identification.

The following table shows some specific examples of parts or configurations that are more difficult to convert and what SPT does when it encounters them.

Table 1. Conversion examples
Part or configuration	SPT action during conversion
Logical partitions with more than one partition profile	SPT can only convert one profile per logical partition. SPT prompts you to select the profile you want to use for that partition during the conversion process.
Cards that are referred to by more than one partition profile	SPT assigns the card to the first profile it encounters that references the card and discards all other references to the card.
CD, DVD, or optical storage	SPT does not convert these devices.
Disk drives in a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) array	SPT does not convert any information about these drives.
Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) configuration information	SPT does not convert any VIOS configuration information, such as the following items: Shared Ethernet adapters EtherChannel adapters Storage pools Storage area network (SAN) volumes Backing devices

The following table describes the type of hardware information that you can expect to see in a system plan that you convert to SPT format. The type of information that you can expect is based on the management tool that you use to create the plan and the types of logical partitions in the system plan.

Table 2. Hardware information captured in a system plan based on management tool and logical partition operating environment
Management tool	IBM® i		All other operating environments
Management tool	POWER6® processor	POWER5™ processor	POWER6 processor	POWER5 processor
HMCs before Version 7	Not applicable.	Many cards. No disk drives.	Not applicable.	Very few cards. No disk drives.
HMCs before Version 7 Release 3.3 (when you optimize data collection for the system plan)	Most cards. No disk drives.	Most cards. No disk drives.	Most cards. No disk drives.	Most cards. No disk drives.
HMC Version 7 Release 3.3, and later (when you optimize data collection for the system plan)	Most cards. All disk drives.	Most cards. Some disk drives.	Most cards. Some disk drives.	Most cards. No disk drives.
IVM before Version 1.5.2	Not applicable.	Not applicable.	Few, if any, cards. No disk drives.	Few, if any cards. No disk drives.
IVM Version 1.5.2, and later	Not applicable.	Not applicable.	Many cards. Serial-attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives only.	Many cards. No disk drives.