Miscellaneous information about upgrading Virtual I/O Server
This topic provides additional information about the Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) upgrade process.
Third-party software
As the VIOS 3.1 release is a new and fresh installation from a VIOS mksysb image, any third-party software must be reinstalled after the VIOS installation. If you upgrade from VIOS version 2.2.x, you can back up the VIOS metadata by using the viosbr command. While the viosbr command can back up the VIOS metadata, it does not directly manage the metadata of third-party software. Therefore, you must save any third-party metadata, including third-party license requirements before you upgrade the VIOS.
Safe installations
You must upgrade each VIOS in a manner that minimizes impact to your environment. You must ensure that redundant VIOS nodes are taken offline one at a time. For example, the second VIOS must not be taken offline until the first VIOS is back online and fully operational. You must also shut down any client systems that have rootvg based virtual devices. Failure to gracefully shut down these nodes might lead to a crash of those nodes.
VIOS image preparation
You can use the VIOS upgrade tool to prepare the VIOS image for your environment.
- VIOS mksysb image that is supplied by IBM®.
- Customized VIOS image that is prepared at your location based on your requirement.
Typically, you can download the VIOS mksysb image from the IBM website and customize it by installing third-party software. Some such software applications that you might want to include with the VIOS image are, Multipath application drivers, Security profiles, Performance monitoring tools, and so on. After you install the necessary applications or drivers, a customized VIOS mksysb image is created. Then, you can use the customized VIOS image to deploy on all the Virtual I/O Servers across the data center.
backupios -mksysb -file <filename.mksysb>