We have an environment where HP DL380G6 servers are used to support small projects on a short term basis.
Before the next project the machines are wiped and reinstalled from scratch using a procedure which needs to be documented and baselined, so that we can be sure that the machines are always the same.
The deployment unfortunately is run in isolation so using vCenter Server to automatically deploy them is not an option.
At the moment the procedure requires the ESXi 4.1 base install to be run from a USB CD-drive, followed by temporarily connecting the the machine to a a Windows box installed with vMA, to installed the HP specific parts, a couple of bundles (The HP Offline bundle and the HP NMI Sourcing Driver bundle).
I am aware that it is possible to move the ESXi installer to a bootable USB memory stick, which would be an improvement in itself, but I was wondering if there is a way to include the HP bundles as well, and create a single step installation process?
Is this possible?
Cheers