IBM Power: Build a Spare Parts List from snap Logs

In the snap package of IBM Power servers, lsvpd.out records VPD information for all hardware, where the *FN field is the component's FRU number. Extracting FRU numbers and counting them in Excel yields a complete spare parts list with quantities, and descriptions for each part number can then be retrieved from the IBM website. For snap package collection methods, see 'IBM Power Small System AIX Log Collection'.

Operation Steps

1. Extract the snap package (snap.pax.Z), locate general/lsvpd.out, and open it in a text editor such as UltraEdit. Each component has a group of fields beginning with *. The FRU number follows *FN.

   

2. Use the editor's 'Find All' function to search for the keyword *FN, obtaining all lines containing FRU numbers.

   

   English explanatory illustration of the search-results window.

3. Copy the results into a single column in Excel.

   

4. Use Excel's 'Replace' function to first replace *FN with empty, then replace spaces with empty, keeping only the FRU number.

   

   English explanatory illustration; this example reports 29 replacements.

   

   English explanatory illustration; this separate replacement step reports 45 replacements.

5. Insert a header in the first row, such as PN#.

   

6. Select the entire column, insert a pivot table, and drag PN# to both 'Rows' and 'Values (Count)' to obtain each part number and its quantity.

   

   English explanatory illustration; part counts and the grand total of 29 match the source example.

7. On the IBM Support website, locate the corresponding system model and query the component description for each FRU number.