AIX considerations

Understand what you need to account for before migrating your AIX® operating system.

Many options are available for upgrading an existing AIX environment. You can use the following methods to upgrade an existing environment:

Using a mksysb backup
If you can migrate your server to AIX 5L™ Version 5.3 with the 5300-08 Technology Level or later, you can create a mksysb backup of the older server. You can then use the mksysb command to reinstall AIX on the new server.
Using alternate disk migration
If you want to decrease the amount of time that your production environment is down, you can use the nimadm command to perform an alternate disk migration. This method requires more resources than the other methods. You must have an existing AIX Network Installation Management (NIM) master that is running the same version of AIX that you are migrating the new server to.
Note: The 2849 card that is compatible with an IBM® eServer™ i5 server, is not compatible with an AIX logical partition.