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Is your organization looking to update your infrastructure to the latest version of IBM Power Systems but struggling with how to migrate your servers?

When migrating virtual machines (also called logical partitions or LPARs) from an older IBM Power technology to more current systems, Live Partition Mobility (especially as aided by IBM Systems Lab Services’ LPM and Simplified Remote Restart Automation Tool) is the best option—if it’s available to you.  LPM is a feature of Power Systems servers that enables a logical partition to be relocated to another system while it’s running, with no downtime. Clearly, this is the best way to migrate, with uninterrupted service. However, sometimes using LPM is just not possible. Depending on your system configuration and network setup, LPM may not be an available choice.

So, what can you do about LPAR migration when LPM won’t work?

Introducing the Advanced PowerVM Provisioning Toolkit

For situations in which LPM isn’t possible for your Power migration, IBM Systems Lab Services Power Systems practice has developed the IBM Advanced PowerVM Provisioning Toolkit for Power migration.

The Advanced PowerVM Provisioning Toolkit involves a capture/create/build process:

• Capture: Collect re-provisioning data for the LPARs from their source system(s)
• Create: Translate that data set into a “build_profile” for a new target system
• Build: Implement the build_profile to create the new LPARs and map their storage on the new target system

This capture/create/build process flow can minimize the required time and impact of traditional methods of replicating partitions for restart migrations—a huge advantage when time is of the essence.

With the Advanced PowerVM Provisioning Toolkit, IBM Systems Lab Services provides assessment, planning and onsite execution to implement the toolkit and provisioning process based on the client’s specific requirements. We work with clients to integrate it into their existing environment and ensure they are exploiting the latest toolkit features. The solution is equally applicable to both migration and disaster recovery (DR) scenarios, two sides of the same coin.

Benefits and results with Advanced PowerVM Provisioning Toolkit

The Advanced PowerVM Provisioning Toolkit’s capture/create/build process flow has been used by dozens of major clients looking for non-LPM based methods to migrate to new IBM Power technology.

• A major US bank is currently using the capture/create/build process for migration to new IBM Power Systems hardware, assisted by an IBM-created orchestrator script.
• A large US retailer migrated to new Power hardware, reliably re-creating partition profiles from source to target frame in minutes, rather than hours or even days.
• A global financial investment group has been running the capture/create/build process daily for three-plus years as the core of its DR system.

Core features of the Toolkit are also an integral part of the IBM Business Continuity and Recovery Services contract DR offering, which provides disaster recovery onto unlike hardware, where it is being used to create DR readiness for more than 25 current customers.

Key benefits of this approach include:

• Assisting with migration to new hardware technologies
• Reducing manual errors associated with re-creating partition profiles by hand
• Creating a repeatable methodology for phased migration of distinct groups of LPARs
• The ability to “stage” the migration at any time, leaving the restart for a designated outage window to complete the migration
• Facilitating customized DR event response

Where to learn more

The IBM Systems Lab Services Power Systems practice is an experienced group of technical consultants with proven expertise to help clients with designing, building and delivering Power Systems infrastructure for Linux, AIX and IBM i solutions. Virtualization and Power migration are among our specialties.

To find out if the Advanced PowerVM Provisioning Toolkit could work in your environment, or for further support addressing your Power Systems needs, contact IBM Systems Lab Services today to schedule a consultation.

The post Can I migrate my IBM Power Systems without Live Partition Mobility? appeared first on IBM Systems Blog: In the Making.