I'm having a bit of an argument with IBM support about this.

I was sure it was possible for me to update from 5.2.5 to 5.3.0 by
using alt_disk_install to clone the rootvg, but IBM are telling me that
I must use NIM.
With such a small environment I don't want to go through the time and
cost of implementing this if I don't have to.

Has anyone successfully upgraded from 5.2 to 5.3 using alt_disk_install
to clone the rootvg?

Thanks

Henry

without nim, you wont be able to do this as a seamless process.
you could use alt_disk_install to create a cloned rootvg for backout.
you would have to boot to cd or some other sort to do the actual
upgrade which would require downtime.

and they' right... just think about it, to perform alt_disk_install
from 5.2 to 5.3 you'll need alt_disk_install of 5.3 to run 5.2 machine,
but it depends on 5.3 bos.rte and libraries... that's why you can use
nimadm to do the upgrade - SPOT/LPP_SOURCE gives you the way of running
alt_disk_install of the high version of OS.