iSCSI NETWORK BOOT
With the NUC Skull Canyon it is possible to boot an operating system from an iSCSI LUN. Whereas with other operating systems (e.g. Windows), certain steps are required to install a software iSCSI initiator inside the operating system and then configure the iSCSI initiator to boot the operating system from an iSCSI LUN, VMware ESXi is automatically enabled for booting from an iSCSI LUN as long as the iSCSI LUN is mounted before ESXi installer is loaded. If the iSCSI LUN is mounted properly, the ESXi installer will detect the mounted iSCSI LUN and will offer it as one of the available targets for installing ESXi. Therefore, to boot ESXi from an iSCSI LUN, nothing needs to be configured in ESXi itself besides selecting the iSCSI LUN as the destination to which ESXi should be installed (not unlike selecting any other drive visible by the ESXi installer). Continue reading