MJB wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm looking for some help/advice on patching AIX. We are in the
> process of moving from Sun/Solaris to IBM/AIX. We have a few p5
> servers running 5.3 and I want to make sure the OS stays up to date.
> On Solaris you could just download the latest recommended patch cluster
> from Sunsolve, unzip it and install it.
>
> How does it work with AIX? I've been to:
>
> http://www-912.ibm.com/eserver/support/fixes/fcgui.jsp
>
> I plug in my system info and then have to select from:
>
> Technology Level
> Service Pack
> Maintenance Level
> etc, etc
>
> I have no idea which one I need to download/install. Does AIX have a
> 'recommended cluster' equivalent? If so am I looking in the right
> place?
>
> Dare I inquire about the equivalent to Sun's OBP/firmware?
>
> Thanks

Look into SUMA. I don't know how many machines you have to maintain or
how you do your provisioning or what not. But we use SUMA on our 520s
and it's great. Every night it downloads the latest patches. We have
a set schedule. We install new patches in the applied state, test
them, and just run them as applied until testing is complete and it is
time to apply a new round of patches. Then we commit all and apply the
new ones. That's an important step.

So give smitty suma a look and see if it helps you out. You will have
to do a little work to configure it, but nothing terribly
sophisticated. The only information you should need with respect to
maintenance levels etc. is your output from oslevel -r.