You will want to use the CDROM to boot from, that saves you having
to put the required code that is needed for your "disaster" machine
on your current SP node.  How that works is (briefly):
Boot from CDROM, get to where it says something like "System 
Recovery" or Recover from mksysb tape - It's been a while since
I've done it.  At the point where you select the tape device, THEN
insert the mksysb tape in drive and continue.  What happens is
it restores mksysb and at point where you need certain code (like uniprocessor 
code on a uniprocessor machine and your original
machine was MP) then it pulls that code off the CDROM.

This means you can take a mksysb tape from any RS/6000 or
and restore to any other RS/6000, regardless of processor class
or hardware.  Important point to mention is that the CDROM has
to be at same OS level as the mksysb tape - the original machine!

You can spend time figuring what filesets would be needed for target 
machine and install them on current machine, but this takes detailed
examination and you can miss something.  And the machine you restore
to in a disaster may not be what you had planned on etc. etc.

BTW: For rebuilding an AIX machine, the TSM backup is not enough,
you need a mksysb tape (or if restoring an SP node, the image on the
Control Workstation) to do base restore first.  Or a 3rd party product
like Bare Metal Restore from The Kernel Group I think does this
without a mksysb tape.

Hope this helps some.


David B. Longo
System Administrator
Health First, Inc.
3300 Fiske Blvd.
Rockledge, FL 32955-4305
PH      321.434.5536
Pager  321.634.8230
Fax:    321.434.5525
david.longo AT health-first DOT org


>>> bill.jolley AT EDS DOT COM 05/02/02 01:40PM >>>
No, I do not have a tape drive attached to the SP node. I have introduced
AIX sysback as an alternative.  Several colleagues stated that you could
boot from cdrom and use the image on tape as input and basically I am
restored. I disagreed.  But thanks. Sysback appears to be much easier than
jumping through hoops.