6.5.1

Table 2‑17. Preparation for Stateless Caching or Stateful Installs
Requirement or Decision Description
Decide on VMFS partition overwrite When you install ESXi by using the interactive installer, you are
prompted whether you want to overwrite an existing VMFS
datastore. The System Cache Configuration host profile
provides an option to overwrite existing VMFS partitions.
The option is not available if you set up the host profile to use a
USB drive.
Decide whether you need a highly available environment If you use vSphere Auto Deploy with stateless caching, you can
set up a highly available vSphere Auto Deploy environment to
guarantee that virtual machines are migrated on newly
provisioned hosts and that the environment supports vNetwork
Distributed Switch even if the vCenter Server system becomes
temporarily unavailable.
Set the boot order The boot order you specify for your hosts depends on the
feature you want to use.
n
To set up vSphere Auto Deploy with stateless caching,
configure your host to first attempt to boot from the network,
and to then attempt to boot from disk. If the vSphere Auto
Deploy server is not available, the host boots using the
cache.
n
To set up vSphere Auto Deploy for stateful installs on hosts
that do not currently have a bootable disk, configure your
hosts to first attempt to boot from disk, and to then attempt
to boot from the network.
Note If you currently have a bootable image on the disk,
configure the hosts for one-time PXE boot, and provision the
host with vSphere Auto Deploy to use a host profile that
specifies stateful installs.
Stateless Caching and Loss of Connectivity
If the ESXi hosts that run your virtual machines lose connectivity to the vSphere Auto Deploy server, the
vCenter Server system, or both, some limitations apply the next time you reboot the host.
n
If vCenter Server is available but the vSphere Auto Deploy server is unavailable, hosts do not
connect to the vCenter Server system automatically. You can manually connect the hosts to the
vCenter Server, or wait until the vSphere Auto Deploy server is available again.
n
If both vCenter Server and vSphere Auto Deploy are unavailable, you can connect to each ESXi host
by using the VMware Host Client, and add virtual machines to each host.
n
If vCenter Server is not available, vSphere DRS does not work. The vSphere Auto Deploy server
cannot add hosts to the vCenter Server. You can connect to each ESXi host by using the
VMware Host Client, and add virtual machines to each host.
n
If you make changes to your setup while connectivity is lost, the changes are lost when the
connection to the vSphere Auto Deploy server is restored.
vSphere Installation and Setup
VMware, Inc. 160