White Papers

5 Zero-touch, bare-metal server provisioning using the Dell EMC iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller Auto Config
Executive summary
While the ever-growing requirement for reducing redundant processes and increasing availability of business-critical
services is evident, it is always challenging for the system administrators and datacenter managers to scale out their IT
environment. By using DHCP provisioning, the iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller provides the Auto Config feature to
seamlessly and effectively onboard servers that are configured in extremely less time. Elaborated examples are provided
to configure the Auto Config feature by using different interfaces, OSs, user options, server configuration profiles, and
DHCP servers.
The Auto Config feature allows IT administrators to build an environment in which servers can automatically configure all
hardware settings as part of the out-of-band network management. This eliminates the necessity of high-touch, manual
steps to configure server subsystems such as storage, networking, and BIOS. Administrators can develop configuration
profiles for classes of servers and apply those profiles without interacting with individual systems.
The increase in server density combined with the constraint of IT resources has made automated management
capabilities a critical component of IT operations. Administrators require repeatable and scalable provisioning capabilities
that eliminate error-prone and time-consuming manual processes. The iDRAC firmware for 12th, 13th, and 14th
generation PowerEdge servers provides the Auto Config—a zero-touch mechanism—for configuring a bare-metal server
from a common server configuration profile.
This technical white paper describes the requirements for using Auto Config, the setup procedures, and the tasks for
monitoring the Auto Config workflow by providing detailed input and output examples.