This blog is written by Kannan K from Hypervisor Engineering and Venkat K from Linux Engineering team.
Dell has announced the availability of SLES 11 SP3 for factory install today.
What’s new?
So far, Dell Customers have had option to select SLES 11 SP2 and prior releases as factory installed in BIOS mode only.
In this option, we can’t install OS with virtual disk size >= 2 TB.
SLES 11 SP3 is the first release in SLES 11 release branch which can be ordered as factory installed in both BIOS and UEFI boot mode.
Dell customers can order Dell PowerEdge Servers with SLES 11 SP3 OS pre-installed from factory.
Benefits:
Factory installed OS has local repository configured to install packages quickly. The below example shows, the repository usage method.
How to buy a Dell PowerEdge Server factory installed with SLES 11 SP3 OS in UEFI boot mode?
- If you order a system via Dell online, the UEFI boot mode option is not available. Hence factory installation slices the virtual disks into 1.8 TBs in BIOS boot mode.
Contact the Dell Sales Team to order a factory installed SLES 11 SP3 system with UEFI boot mode and virtual disk size >= 2 TB.
Please refer below wiki, to get more information about Dell Support for UEFI on PowerEdge servers.
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/virtualization/w/wiki/4866.vmware-esxi-support-for-uefi.aspx
Other references: