Re: SWMA, HWMA and Update Access Keys....

Thanks Jim.  That would have been a "nice to know" before the UAK expired.  Firmware has always been a bit of a mystery for me on IBM i.  Never really gave it a second thought until Rob posted about issues with incompatible levels and ensuing hassles with HMC, etc.  I have been meaning to look into it, since I knew I was back level.

The good Dr. Franken also weighed in with "IBM Has made many levels of Firmware available even without hardware support" which makes me wonder "Am I SOL without HWMA or not?"  Current firmware on the 9009 I have is:

                            Display Firmware Status


 Service partition  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   Yes

 Firmware update policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   *HMC

 Server IPL source  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :   Permanent

 Firmware product ID/release  . . . . . . . . . . . :   5733909  V1R1M0

 Update access key expiration date  . . . . . . . . :   07/09/22



           --Server firmware---  --Operating system--

           Fix         PTF       Fix         PTF       Update

 Copy      pack        ID        pack        ID        Status

 *ACTIVE   VL910_135   MH01812

           FW910.30

 *TEMP     VL910_135   MH01812   *NONE       *NONE     None

           FW910.30              *NONE

 *PERM     VL910_135   MH01812   *NONE       *NONE     None

           FW910.30              *NONE

                                                                         Bottom

Pretty old, I know.  So should I attempt to get HWMA?  Follow the PRPQ route to just take my chances with the status quo?  Try to update the Firmware to see if I can?

Pete Helgren
www.petesworkshop.com
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On 7/11/2022 10:25 AM, Jim Oberholtzer wrote:

You will not be able to update the firmware, and eventually not be able to
apply PTFs due to incompatibility, but the system will keep running.

You will need to request a PRPQ for the firmware support only, IBM will
only sell one year at a time on that. It's a royal, class A, major PITA to
get done.

IBM does not seem to realize that the dwindling support personnel in the
field and the awful lack of experience and education/training of these
folks are driving customers away from IBM Hardware support. Last week I
had to instruct the SSR how to replace a disk unit since "he had never done
it before on an IBM i system". Did not even know how to sign in to SST.
He was trying to get SMIT to come up (AIX utility).

That said, hardware support on a single system is not too awful in price.



--
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects