Welcome - Deploy System Plan Wizard

Use this page to select the system plan that you want to deploy and the name of the managed system on which you want to deploy the plan.

A system plan is a specification of the logical partition configuration of a single managed system. A system plan is stored in a file that is called a system-plan file and has a file suffix of .sysplan. A system-plan file can contain more than one system plan, although multiple plans in a single file are not common.

You can import a system-plan file into a Hardware Management Console (HMC) and deploy a system plan in the file to one or more systems that the HMC manages. The managed system on which you deploy a system plan must have hardware that is identical to the hardware in the system plan.

You can use the Deploy System Plan wizard to perform the following actions, depending on the contents of the system plan:

• If the system plan contains logical partition information, you can use the wizard to create the specified logical partitions on the managed system. You can choose to create all the logical partitions specified within the system plan, or you can choose which logical partitions in the system plan that you want to create.
• If the system plan contains operating environment installation information, you can use the wizard to install the operating environment for a specified partition. You can use the wizard to specify the resource location that the wizard needs for installing the operating system environment, as well as to specify or change operating environment installation settings. The wizard provides support for installing the following operating environments:
  • AIX - version 5.3 or 6.1
  • Red Hat - select one of the following versions:
    • RedHat EL-AS - version 4, 4 QUI, 4 QU2, 4 QU3, 4QU4, 4.5, or 4.6
    • RedHat EL-Server - version 5 or version 5.1
  • SLES - version 10, 10 SP1, 9, 9 SP1, 9 SP2, 9 SP3, or 9 SP4
  • VIOS - version 1.4.1.0, 1.5, and 2.0
• If the system plan contains VIOS provisioning information for a partition, you can use the wizard to provision the partition. The wizard can configure one or more client partitions and provision certain resources for the partitions when the system plan contains this type of provisioning information.

The Deploy System Plan wizard guides you through the following steps of the deployment process:

1. Welcome - This step allows you to specify the system plan to deploy and the managed system on which you want to deploy the plan.
2. Multiple System Plans - This optional step allows you to select a specific system plan in a system-plan file. This step does not occur unless there is more than one system plan in the specified file.
3. Validation - This step validates the information in the system plan to ensure a successful deployment. The wizard validates both hardware and partition information in the plan.
4. Partition Deployment - This step allows you to selectively install partitions in the plan. This step does not occur if all partitions in the plan are already deployed on the managed system.
5. Operating Environment Install Deployment - This step allows you to selectively install an operating environment for a partition in the system plan. This step does not occur if the plan does not contain operating environment information.
6. Customize Operating Environment Install - This step allows you to provide required resource information for the operating environment installation and make any needed changes to installation settings. This step does not occur if the plan does not contain operating environment information. This step includes the following configuration options for installing an operating environment on the target partition:
   • Operating Environment Install Image Resource - This configuration option allows you to specify an existing location for the operating environment files or to create a new resource location to use for the installation.
   • Modify Install Settings - This configuration option allows you to provide or change late-binding installation settings for the target partition of the operating environment installation, such as the IP address and other information for the target partition.
     Note: You can use custom installation files to customize the installation of an operating environment during the system plan deployment process only if the system plan already contains the necessary files. You can create these files and associate them with a system plan only in the System Planning Tool (SPT).
   • Save Modified Operating Environment Install Information - This configuration option allows you to save any changes that you make to late-binding operating environment installation settings. You can save changes to the current system-plan file or you can save them to a new system-plan file.
7. Summary - This step allows you to review the complete set of actions that the wizard will perform to deploy the system plan on the managed system.
8. Deployment Progress - This step allows you to view the progress of the deployment, including the status of individual deployment actions and any messages for each deployment action as it occurs.

Note: The option to Deploy is available from the Summary page only.

Select one of the following topics to learn more about using this page:

System plan

Managed system