Last month, I talked about the importance of the HMC and how it shouldn’t be ignored. That leads to the question: How do I keep it running smoothly? The full answer can be pretty complex. In fact, Pete regularly speaks at conferences on the topic of HMC maintenance and the presentation can easily fill a 90-minute session. Today, I’d like to set our sights a bit lower and just talk about the basics of HMC updates. IBM regularly releases Service Packs and PTFs for each version of the HMC software…

The Hardware Management Console (HMC) is a strange beast. Anyone with a partitioned system needs one, and it can be an indispensable tool for anyone whose desk isn’t within 100 yards of the machine room…but it isn’t part of the system itself and it usually isn’t critical to everyday operations once things are up and running. Is it part of your critical path or is it an accessory largely to be forgotten? To answer that question, let’s examine how the HMC relates to your system and how IBM supports the…