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Provision an already provisioned server

Build plans support re-purposing (reprovisioning) a server. You can do this either fully automatically or manually.

Reprovisioning can cause data loss on the server and decommissions the server in SA. For more information on the effects of decommissioning, see “Deactivating a Server” in the SA Use section.

Automatic re-provisioning

To reprovision a server automatically, you use a Build Plan such as SAMPLE: Prepare server for reprovisioning to Linux to prepare the server. You run this Build Plan on the managed server. It decommissions the server and brings it into Maintenance mode. After the Build Plan job completes, you can use any baseline SA Build Plan to provision to a new OS.

For example, to reprovision the server with Windows, use a Build Plan based on SAMPLE: Prepare server for reprovisioning to Linux, editing the parameters of the boot step to prepare the server before starting the Windows provisioning Build Plan.

If you expect to be executing reprovisioning jobs often, you may want to create a Build Plan that specifies both the reprovisioning steps and the steps that provision to a new OS.

Manual re-provisioning

SA supports manual preparation of servers for reprovisioning (for example, to boot using a boot image in a DHCP-less environment). Before you can do this, you must manually decommission (deactivate) the server from SA before booting it into Maintenance mode, see “Deactivating a Server” in the SA Use section.

Failure to decommission the server will lead to the server failing to boot into Maintenance mode (due to a registration error with the SA Core).

Under certain platforms, a server can boot into Maintenance mode without being decommissioned, however, this capability was designed for maintenance tasks only, not reprovisioning, therefore a failure to decommission the server will lead to an inconsistent representation of the server in SA. For example, old software policies might still be attached.

The Decommission Server procedure cannot be used in this setup because it disables the SA Agent, so the step is not able to continue and will fail in the subsequent Wait for HPE SA Agent step or any step that requires the SA Agent to be active.