Quick Boot on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers This paper provides an overview of VMware vSphere Quick Boot feature. It also talks about Hardware and software considerations for Quick Boot feature on Dell EMC PowerEdge Platforms.
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Table of Contents 1 Purpose................................................................................................................................................... 5 2 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 5 3 2.1 Quick Boot Overview .................................................................................................................... 5 2.
Table of Figures Figure 1 : ESXi Package list post upgrade ...................................................................................................... 7 Figure 2 : Quick Boot compatibility check on a supported Platform ............................................................ 8 Figure 3 : Quick Boot Compatibility check on an unsupported Platform ..................................................... 8 Figure 4 : Quick Boot compatibility failure post ESXi upgrade ................................
1 Purpose This document provides an overview of software and hardware configuration requirements to enable vSphere Quick Boot feature on Dell EMC’s PowerEdge platforms. The goal of this document is to help guide IT architects or system administrators to build a hardware configuration and software stack that supports VMware vSphere6.7 Quick Boot feature on PowerEdge Servers. 2 Introduction 2.1 Quick Boot Overview Quick Boot is a new type of “soft” reboot mechanism introduced in vSphere 6.7.
3.1 Software Components 3.1.1 vSphere Requirements Quick Boot feature is supported from vSphere 6.7. ESXi 6.7 is the minimum hypervisor version required to exercise Quick Boot feature. vSphere Update Manager (VUM) installed on vCenter 6.7 enables Quick Boot by default on platforms that support this feature. 3.1.2 Device Driver requirements Device drivers built using vSphere 6.7 Native Driver Development Kit (NDDK) support Quick Boot. Note that vmklinux DDK based drivers do not support Quick Boot.
behavior is mostly observed because some of the ESXi 6.5 async drivers may be retained and loaded by default post upgrading to ESXi 6.7. For example, below are the versions of driver VIBs (vSphere Installation Bundles) which are retained from Dell EMC 6.5U1-A10 Image to Dell EMC 6.7-A00. Figure 1 : ESXi Package list post upgrade 3.2 Hardware Components 3.2.1 Host Requirements As detailed in Section 3.
Figure 2 : Quick Boot compatibility check on a supported Platform Figure 3 provides a sample output of another configuration where we there are multiple instances of Quick boot compliance check failure. Figure 3 : Quick Boot Compatibility check on an unsupported Platform Figure 4 provides a scenario of ESXi upgraded from 6.5.x branch to 6.7. The loadESXCheckCompat.py shows the incompatibility message with the list of drivers incompatible.
• EMC PowerEdge server configuration which has any of these PERC controllers will not be able to support Quick Boot in ESXi 6.7 GA as well as Dell EMC customized VMware ESXi 6.7 A00 image. Figure 5 shows a sample output when you run loadESXCheckCompat.py on quick boot supported server that has PERC controller. Figure 5 : Quick Boot compatibility check failure when lsi_mr3 driver is loaded into vmkernel • Figure 6 shows an example output when loadESXCheckCompat.
• Upgrade virtual machine hardware, VMware Tools, and virtual appliances 4.2 Quick Boot with VUM VUM leverages Quick boot feature to reduce the time required for ESXi maintenance workflows by reducing the reboot time of ESXi hosts. The steps below are to be followed to utilize Quick Boot for a patch upgrade using VUM. A patch could be anything (ESXi patches, VIBs) which needs a system reboot. Quick Boot is enabled by default in VUM.
HDD Network Controller 10 x 2.5’ Samsung Intel® 10GbE 4P X710 rNDC 5.2 Software Configuration Under Test Below section gives an overview of the software versions used for Quick Boot. Component Version VMware ESXi (Hypervisor) Dell EMC customized 6.7. 0 version A00 6.7.0-8217866 VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 5.3 Quick Boot on standalone host 1. Below command provides Quick Boot compatibility as we discussed in previous sections. #/usr/lib/vmware/loadesx/bin/loadESXCheckCompat.
Figure 10 : Prepare for Quick Boot 4. Reboot the system by initiating a graceful reboot either from DCUI or from the ESXi shell. NOTE: At this step you will see the host is actually performing Quick Boot by skipping the Hardware reboot 5. Verify loadESX.stats at /scratch/vmware/loadESX/ to see if the system has successfully gone for a Quick Boot. Figure 11 : Quick Boot Stats 5.4 VUM Upgrade scenario involving Quick Boot In this section we demonstrate a VUM upgrade scenario which involve Quick Boot.
Figure 13 : Baseline Creation 5. Select the host to upgrade 6. Navigate to Updates tab 7. Attach the Baseline which was created at step 4. Figure 14 : Attach the Baseline 8.
Figure 15 : Add Baseline and Remediate 9. Remediate starts and processes upgrade to the new image exported 10. Under Remediation settings, ensure that Allow Quick Boot is enabled Figure 16 : Remediation Settings 11. Host enters into Maintenance mode and the Upgrade process is started 12. Once Update process completes, the host enters into Quick Boot cycle. Host skips performing a Hardware reboot cycle. 5.
As we expect, there is a considerable time difference and hence the overall downtime for an ESXi host gets reduced with the introduction of Quick Boot support. 6 References • • • • • • VMware Quick Boot Compatibility Quick Boot of VMware ESXi on DellEMC Power Edge Servers vSphere Update Manager Installation and Administration Guide Introducing VMware vSphere 6.7 Dell EMC vSphere 6.7 Installation Instructions and Important Information Guide http://www.yellow-bricks.
