You can use the Hardware Management Console (HMC) to deploy all or part
of a system plan to a managed system.
When you deploy a system plan, the HMC creates logical partitions
on the managed system according to the specifications in the system
plan. Depending on the contents of the system plan, you can also install
operating environments on the logical partitions in the plan, including
the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS), AIX® or Linux.
Note: The HMC cannot install the IBM® i operating environment
on a logical partition.
If the plan contains VIOS provisioning information
for a logical partition, such as storage assignments and virtual networking
for the client logical partitions of the VIOS. the HMC can make these resource
assignments for the client logical partitions.
You do not have
to deploy a system plan in its entirety, but can instead partially
deploy a system plan on the target system by selecting which logical
partitions in the plan to deploy. You can run the Deploy System Plan
Wizard again at another time to deploy the remainder of the logical
partitions in the system plan. However, if you select a VIOS partition to be deployed,
the wizard deploys all the VIOS provisioning
items that are planned for that partition even if the client logical
partition that uses the provisioned item is not selected for deployment.
If the system plan contains installation information
for the VIOS,
you can use the Deploy System Plan Wizard to install the VIOS and to set up virtual
networking and storage resources for the client logical partitions
of the VIOS.
Before
you deploy a system plan, complete the following tasks:
- Ensure that the system-plan file exists on the HMC. If the system-plan
file does not exist on the HMC,
you must import the system-plan file into the HMC. For
instructions, see Importing
a system plan into an HMC.
- Ensure that you meet all the appropriate requirements for deploying
the system plan. See System
plan deployment requirements for more information.
Deploying a system plan
To use the
HMC to deploy a system
plan on a managed system, complete the following steps:
- In the navigation area of the HMC, select System
Plans.
- In the contents area, select the system plan that you want
to deploy.
- Select . The Deploy System
Plan Wizard starts.
- On the Welcome page, complete the following steps:
- Select the system-plan file that contains the system
plan that you want to deploy.
- Choose the managed system to which you want to deploy
the system plan and click Next. If
the system plan does not match the managed system to which you want
to deploy the plan, the wizard displays a window that informs you
of this. Click OK to continue or Cancel to
select a different system plan.
Note: If the system-plan file contains
multiple system plans, the wizard provides a step so that you can
select a specific system plan from the file. This step does not occur
unless there is more than one system plan in the specified file.
- On the Validation page, complete the following steps:
- Wait for the wizard to validate the managed system and
its hardware against the system plan. The validation process
can take several minutes.
- If the validation process completes successfully, click Next.
- If the validation process fails, correct the problems
that the error messages describe, click Cancel to
exit the wizard, and restart this procedure from the beginning. To help you correct any validation problems, you might want
to create a system plan that is based on the current configuration
of the managed system. Such a system plan allows you to compare the
system plan that you want to deploy with the current configuration
of the managed system. You can do this by using the Create System
Plan task in the HMC,
or you can run the following command from the HMC command line:
mksysplan -m name_of_managed_system -f name_of_new_system_plan.sysplan
This
action creates a new system plan that you can view and compare to
the old system plan to help diagnose any problems.
- Optional: On the Partition Deployment page,
if you do not want to create all of the logical partitions, partition
profiles, virtual adapter types, or virtual adapters in the system
plan, clear the boxes in the Deploy column
beside the logical partitions, partition profiles, virtual adapter
types, or virtual adapters that you do not want to create. Virtual
serial adapters are required in virtual slots 0 and 1 for each logical
partition. You cannot create the logical partition unless you create
these virtual serial adapters.
- Optional: On the Operating
Environment Install page, if there is operating environment installation
information specified in the system plan, complete the following steps:
- Select the operating environments that you want to deploy
to the managed system for each logical partition. For HMC V7R3.2.0 or V7R3.1.0,
you can deploy only the Virtual I/O Server operating environment. For HMC V7R3.3.0,
or later, versions, you also can select to deploy the AIX or Linux operating environments
if the system plan contains installation information for them.
- Enter the location of the Virtual I/O Server installation
image.
- Enter or change late-binding installation settings for
the specified Virtual I/O Server, AIX,
or Linux operating
environment. Late-binding installation settings are
settings that are specific to the installation instance and must be
supplied during the installation step to ensure that the settings
are accurate for the installation instance. For example, you can enter
the IP address of the target logical partition on which you are installing
the operating environment.
Note: If you need to use
automatic installation files to deploy an operating environment, you
cannot add them during the HMC deployment
process. You must use the System Planning Tool (SPT) to create any
necessary automatic installation files separately and attach them
to the system plan prior to deploying the system plan.
- Save any changes that you make to late-binding installation
settings. You can save them to the current system-plan file or to
a new system-plan file.
- On the Summary page, view the system deployment step order
and click Finish. The HMC uses the system plan
to create the specified logical partitions and to install any specified
operating environments. This process can take several minutes.
After you finish the deployment of the system plan, install
operating environments and software on the logical partitions, if
they did not install as part of system plan deployment.
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