Users Guide

Downloading Custom Dell ISO Images
Custom ESXi images that contain all Dell drivers are required for deployment.
NOTE: The OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter ISO does not contain the required ESXi ISO images for
deployment. You must download these images to a location that is accessible during deployment or your deployment may
fail.
1. Navigate to support.dell.com.
2. Browse to the Drivers & Downloads page in your language, and then do one of the following:
● To select the drivers using the Service Tag or Express Service Code, under Yes, in the text box enter the service tag or
express service code, and then click Submit.
● To select the drivers using another option, under No, select one of the following:
○ Automatically detect my Service Tag for me
○ Choose from My Products and Services List
○ Choose from a list of all Dell products
Then click Continue and follow the directions for the option selected.
3. On the page for the server selected, scroll down to Refine your results and under Operating System, use the drop-down
list to select the ESXi system you want.
4. Click Enterprise Solutions.
5. In the Enterprise Solutions list, select the version of ISO required, and then click Download File.
NOTE:
Embedded ISOs are used for hypervisor installs on to Dual Internal SD Modules. Installable ISOs are for installs on
to hard disks.
6. In the dialog box, select For Single File Download via Browser, and then click Download Now.
7. In the dialog box, browse to the location to store the ISO images for deployment.
Understanding How To Configure A Hardware Profile
To configure server hardware settings, you must create a hardware profile. A hardware profile is a configuration template you
can apply to newly-discovered infrastructure components and it requires the following information:
Boot Order
The boot order is the boot device sequence and hard drive sequence, which you can edit only if the boot
mode is set to BIOS.
BIOS Settings The BIOS settings include: memory, processor, SATA, integrated devices, serial communications,
embedded server management, power management, system security, and miscellaneous settings.
iDRAC Settings iDRAC settings include: Network, user list, and user configuration (IPMI/iDRAC privileges).
NOTE: For systems that have iDRAC Express, the iDRAC configuration cannot be extracted;
therefore, the server should not be used as a reference server. If it is used as a target system,
then no iDRAC configuration from the reference server is applied.
RAID
Configuration
The RAID configuration displays the current RAID topology on the reference server at the time the
hardware profile was extracted.
NOTE: There are two RAID configuration options configured in the Hardware Profile:
● Apply RAID1 + create a dedicated hot spare, applicable. Use this option if you want to apply
default RAID configuration settings to the target server. The RAID configuration task defaults to
RAID1 on the first two drives of the integrated controller that are RAID1 capable. Additionally, a
dedicated hot-spare for the RAID1 array is created if a candidate drive meeting the criteria exists
● Clone RAID configuration from the reference Server as shown below. Use this option if you want
to clone the reference server setting. See Creating A New Hardware Profile.
NOTE: The OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter enables certain BIOS settings under the
Processor group in the BIOS on all deployed servers, regardless of the settings on the reference
server. Before using a reference server to create a new hardware profile, it must have the Collect
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