7.0

Set up and apply a host profile for stateful installs. When you provision a host with vSphere
Auto Deploy, the image is installed on the local disk, a remote disk, or a USB drive. For
subsequent boots, you boot from the disk. The host no longer uses vSphere Auto Deploy.
Preparation
To successfully use stateless caching or stateful installs, decide how to configure the system and
set the boot order.
Table 5-18. 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.
VMware ESXi Installation and Setup
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