Preparing for system plan conversion

Before you convert the system plan to the format that the System Planning Tool (SPT) uses for system plans, you need to collect some information to use during the conversion process.

Your original system-plan file remains intact after the conversion. You will not lose any of your data. When you convert your system plan, the SPT gives the converted plan a new name and saves it as a new system plan.

Before you convert a system plan to the format that the SPT uses for system plans, you need to collect some information to use during the conversion process. Some of this information can help with potential conversion limitations. You need to gather the following information:

System attributes. You need to provide the processor, server, and edition features for the system you want to convert. The SPT Conversion Wizard narrows the options to those that are valid for the system you are converting, but you must select the correct values from the list of valid options.
Additional system units. If your processor feature has multiple system units that support different processor features, select the correct processor feature for each system unit from a list of valid options.
Backplane. If the system in the plan you are converting supports more than one type of backplane, select which backplane your system uses from a list of valid options.
Logical partitions. When you convert your system-plan file to SPT format, select which logical partitions you want to include in the converted plan. This enables you to pick just the logical partitions that you want to work with in the SPT. For example, if you are considering moving a particular workload to a new system, you can select just those logical partitions that are used to run that workload and include them in the plan that is converted to SPT format.
After you know which logical partitions you want to include, select which profile to associate with each logical partition in the converted plan. The SPT can only associate one profile with a logical partition. For this reason, you might need to convert your original system plan more than once to work with different views of the data. For example, if you have logical partitions that use one profile during the day and a different profile at night, select the logical partitions and profiles that are used at the same time to ensure that your converted system plan has an accurate view of how your system is used.

You also might need to select the operating system of the logical partition, if that information is not available in your original system plan.
Expansion units. You must match the top and bottom enclosures of any double-high expansion units that are attached to your system. To do this, have available the serial numbers of the top and bottom enclosures when you use the wizard.
Adapters. You must identify which adapters are in which physical locations on your system. The SPT identifies as many adapters as possible, based on the vital product data that the system plan contains. For those adapters that the SPT is unable to identify, the SPT can provide a few possibilities for you to choose from. However, if those possibilities are not correct, or if the SPT cannot identify any possibilities, you might have to provide the FRU, CCIN, part number, or feature number of the correct adapter. If you do not know the number, you can find it by looking at the physical system or by using the following operating system commands to query to obtain the correct number:

Table 1. Operating system commands for identifying adapters
Operating environment	Command	When to use the command
IBM® i	DSPHDWRSC	This command is useful if you have a number of adapters to look up because the command writes the results for multiple adapters to a single output file.
IBM® i	STRSST	This command accesses the Hardware Resource Manager, which enables you to look up information about individual adapters. Use this command if you only have a few numbers to look up.
AIX® and Linux®	lsslot	Use this command if you are trying to obtain information about an adapter in a hot-plug slot. This command enables you to view all of the adapters and integrated hardware for the hot-plug slot so you can determine the adapter for which you need the number.
AIX® and Linux®	lscfg	Use this command if you are trying to obtain information about an adapter that is not in a hot-plug slot, or if you have already used the lsslot command to obtain adapter information for a hot-plug slot.

You can find additional details about how to use these commands in the online help for the SPT Conversion Wizard.

After you finish preparing for the conversion process, you need to export the system plan that you want to convert from the management tool that you used to create it. When you have the exported system plan from the Hardware Management Console (HMC) or from the Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM), you are ready to convert the system plan into SPT format.