7.0

Using PowerCLI to Set Up vSphere Auto Deploy for Stateless Caching or Stateful Installs
You can create a host profile for a reference host and write a vSphere Auto Deploy rule that
applies that host profile to other target hosts in a PowerCLI session. The following workflow
results.
1 You provision a reference host with vSphere Auto Deploy and create a host profile to enable a
form of caching.
2 You write a rule that provisions additional hosts with vSphere Auto Deploy and that applies the
host profile of the reference host to those hosts.
3 vSphere Auto Deploy provisions each host with the image profile or by using the script bundle
associated with the rule. The exact effect of applying the host profile depends on the host
profile you selected.
n For stateful installs, vSphere Auto Deploy proceeds as follows:
n During first boot, vSphere Auto Deploy installs the image on the host.
n During subsequent boots, the host boots from disk. The hosts do not need a
connection to the vSphere Auto Deploy server.
n For stateless caching, vSphere Auto Deploy proceeds as follows:
n During first boot, vSphere Auto Deploy provisions the host and caches the image.
n During subsequent boots, vSphere Auto Deploy provisions the host. If vSphere Auto
Deploy is unavailable, the host boots from the cached image, however, setup can only
be completed when the host can reach the vSphere Auto Deploy server.
Configure a Host Profile to Use Stateless Caching
When a host is set up to use stateless caching, the host uses a cached image if the vSphere Auto
Deploy Server is not available. To use stateless caching, you must configure a host profile. You can
apply that host profile to other hosts that you want to set up for stateless caching.
Prerequisites
n Decide which disk to use for caching and determine whether the caching process will
overwrite an existing VMFS partition.
n In production environments, protect the vCenter Server system and the vSphere Auto Deploy
server by including them in a highly available environment. Having the vCenter Server in
a management cluster guarantees that VDS and virtual machine migration are available. If
possible, also protect other elements of your infrastructure. See Set Up Highly Available
vSphere Auto Deploy Infrastructure.
n Set up your environment for vSphere Auto Deploy. See Preparing for vSphere Auto Deploy.
n Verify that a disk with at least 4GB of free space is available. If the disk is not yet partitioned,
partitioning happens when you apply the host profile.
VMware ESXi Installation and Setup
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