Introduced in VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) is the next evolution of Auto Deploy. Like Auto Deploy, it automates both ESX installation and host configuration. Instead of relying on the traditional PXE/TFTP boot process and Host Profiles, ZTP uses modern UEFI HTTP Boot along with vSphere Configuration Profiles (VCP) to provision a fully configured ESX host that automatically registers itself into the desired vSphere Cluster.
While ESX has supported UEFI HTTP Boot for some time, adoption has been gradual as organizations continue to rely on existing PXE/TFTP-based deployment infrastructure. At the same time, the hardware ecosystem has steadily transitioned from legacy BIOS firmware to UEFI, making UEFI HTTP Boot more broadly available. Auto Deploy's iPXE implementation was a nice bridge to support traditional PXE/TFTP infrastructure while still getting the benefits of HTTP boot, especially when it comes to installing ESX over the network compared to a TFTP-based approach.
While cleaning out some old lab hardware, I came across a spare ASUS NUC 15 Pro that I was no longer using and wondered whether it supported UEFI HTTP Boot and could be repurposed for ZTP testing? 🤔