Quick Boot of VMware ESXi on DellEMC Power Edge Servers

VMware Quick Boot is a new type of "soft" reboot mechanism introduced in vSphere 6.7. Unlike a regular host reboot operation (warm or cold), Quick Boot does not involve going through the actual hardware reboot process. When you initiate a Quick Boot, ESXi restarts in a way similar to normal reboot operation but the hardware does not go through the normal process of reboot operations such as POST, firmware load, re-initialization of hardware resources, reload ACPI/SMBIOS tables etc...

This feature helps to speed up server management workflows which do not require a hardware reboot. For example, applying an ESXi security patch or upgrading the ESXi hypervisor will most likely not require you to have the host/hardware rebooted. Please refer to vSphere Update Manage Installation and Administration Guide for instructions on configuration/ use this feature.

Dell EMC and VMware have worked together to enable Quick Boot on the following platforms.

• PowerEdge R740
• PowerEdge R740xd
• PowerEdge R640
• PowerEdge R730
• PowerEdge R730xd
• PowerEdge R630

The following script verifies that the hardware and softwareconfiguration of a given host supports Quick Boot. Dell EMC recommends end users to run this script manually to make sure that the configuration is compatible for quickboot. 

$ /usr/lib/vmware/loadesx/bin/loadESXCheckCompat.py

NOTE: Refer to VMware KB 52477 , Installation Instructions and Important Information Guide and vSphere Update Manager Installation and Administration Guide to ensure your host meets the minimum requirements to support Quick Boot. 

Refer to Dell EMC White paper on vSphere Quick boot support stance in detail.