[Auto-Deploy] How ESXi reboot

[SrVMwarer]

Hello Gurus,

If I disconnected my Boot device from ESXi and rebooted the host it will be rebooted as the System loaded to the memory.

Fine, then if I have ESXi booted via  Stateless Auto Deploy rebooted and the vCenter isn't available ESXi will not boot, isn't it loaded to the memory ?

[SrVMwarer]

Any luck

[Nawals · Accepted solution]

Stateless Caching

This option is similar to stateless with one major difference. Upon provisioning, the ESXi image is written or cached to a host’s server local (internal) or USB disk. The option is particularly useful when multiple ESXi hosts are being provisioned concurrently so rather than hog the network, ESXi is re-provisioned from a cached image, state and all, from local or USB disk. There are a few gotchas to be aware of however. I’m reproducing the following text from VMware’s site:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Stateful Install

This option still provisions ESXi pretty much in the same way, the only difference here being that after provisioning, the OS, state and configuration are completely written to disk so that on subsequent reboots, the host will boots up from disk with zero dependence on the Auto Deploy infrastructure

Please mark helpful or correct if resolve your query..

[SrVMwarer]

Thanks a tons, I will re-read multiple times to enforce the concept and I will ask again I think :smileygrin:

I appreciate your help