Upgrade planning tasks

You can read about the items that you need to consider before you upgrade the server. These planning topics are essential and can assist you when planning for hardware, software, and the physical site preparation.

You can obtain a planning checklist depending on your target server from the planning topic. For more information, see the Planning checklist. The following list details some upgrade planning considerations to be aware of:

If you are performing a Miscellaneous equipment specification (MES) processor upgrade for a 520, 550, or a 570 model, your server firmware and i5/OS® partitions must be at a minimum level of code prior to your MES upgrade. To see the current level of code required for this upgrade, see IBM Prerequisite Web site(http://www-912.ibm.com/e_dir/eServerPrereq.nsf).
To learn about your Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) adapters, and determine where they should be placed following an upgrade, see PCI adapter placement in the system unit or expansion unit.
Plug the High-Speed Link (HSL) cables that were plugged into the back of the 890 into the front of the 595 when moving from an System i® model 890 to an IBM® System i5® or IBM eServer™ i5 595. Ensure that your HSL cables are long enough to accommodate for this change.
You must complete a System Power Control Network (SPCN) download in the following instances:
1. If you are upgrading your i5/OS
2. If you are converting an expansion unit
If you experience any RIO errors while performing an SPCN download, fix those errors immediately. If those errors are not fixed, the SPCN download might take several hours to complete.
If you are migrating an expansion unit from a source server to a target server during your server upgrade, ensure that you plan for the following items:
- If you are upgrading to a new IBM System i5 or eServer i5 model, perform the following tasks to ensure that the SPCN download runs correctly:
  1. Ensure that the vital product data (VPD) has been added to the expansion unit before the upgrade. See Programming vital product data for information on how to perform that task.
  2. Ensure that your HMC user ID has hmcsuperadmin authority. See Editing HMC user information and roles for information about changing authority for an HMC user ID.
- Remove the power needs from the expansion unit during the migration so that the target server owns the SPCN ID of the expansion unit.