Planning Considerations For Your Operations Console Installation Or Upgrade - IBM System i Manual

Note: Operations Console does not use any embedded serial ports located on the system.
To check that you have an available communication port, check the documentation for your PC or with
the PC manufacturer to verify you have the necessary communications port or ports. When you configure
Operations Console, the wizard will search for a port for the console.
The use of a Universal Serial Bus (USB) to serial port adapter support has been added to Operations
Console. The adapter will be placed at the PC end of the console serial cable and connect to the PC's USB
port. When installing the USB adapter, follow the manufacturer's instructions, the operating system will
assign a serial port to that adapter, COM 4, for example. This adapter will be used exclusively for the
console. As above, Operations Console supports serial COM ports 1-9.
Any adapter should work but IBM can not guarantee every adapter to work correctly in every PC
environment. Should a failure occur, you can contact the manufacturer of the adapter, the manufacturer
of the PC, your hardware service provider, or you can try another adapter.
Restrictions on use
The adapter must plug directly into a USB connector on the PC. Neither the use of a USB hub to share
connections nor the use of USB extension cables is supported, however these devices may function
correctly in some situations.
Planning considerations for your Operations Console installation or
upgrade
To plan for your Operations Console installation or upgrade, you need to know this information.
If you are upgrading to V5R4 and you want to replace an existing console with Operations Console,
upgrade the system before migrating the console. This will prevent any conflict between the existing
console and the Operations Console.
Prerequisite information for Operations Console users upgrading to or installing
V5R4
You must comply with the following before upgrading or installing your software (i5/OS, Licensed
Internal Code) to V5R4:
1. If your system has a 2771 adapter card in the processing unit and you plan to use Operations Console
as either your primary console or as a backup console, it must be installed in the location designated
by model for cable connections based on the following table, prior to the upgrade or installation. Each
model has a different preferred location:
Model
270
800, 810
820
825
830, SB2
840, SB3
870, 890
2. When you receive the i5/OS release upgrade, all of the user IDs included with the operating system
are expired, except for 11111111 (eight 1's). For all upgrades and installations, you need to establish a
connection between the System i platform and Operations Console using the service tools user ID of
Operations Console asynchronous card location for the
cable
C07
C07
C06
C06
C02
C02
C02
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Operations Console