A system is being taken from AIX 6 to AIX 7. Systems application and user data must be preserved. Which upgrade method will support this requirement?

The Migration installation method in AIX performs an in-place upgrade of the operating system from one version to another, preserving installed application software, user data, and system configuration. It replaces or updates base OS filesets while leaving user-installed software and /home data intact. This is the designed upgrade path when continuity of applications and data is required.

Preservation installation is not a standard AIX installation type - the recognized types are New and Complete Overwrite, Migration, and Preservation (of user volume groups), and even the preservation variant still replaces the rootvg content rather than upgrading the OS version.

New and Complete Overwrite destroys all existing data and configuration on the target disk and installs a fresh copy of the OS, making it unsuitable when application and user data must be retained.

A mksysb via NIM restores a previously captured system image to the same or equivalent system but does not perform a version upgrade from AIX 6 to AIX 7; it would restore the old AIX 6 image, not upgrade it.