How to improve IE-3300 boot startup time

[roger-pierson]

Greetings,

I am using the IE-3300-8T2S in an application that has some requirements for overall startup time, and I was surprised to find that the switch alone exceeds that allowed time by a considerable margin. I'm hoping to hear some ideas on what can be done via configuration to improve boot time.  

In my testing, a switch fresh out of the box running OS version 17.09.04a with just the bare minimum of configuration (an IP address and different admin password) takes an average of 137 seconds before it begins responding to PING requests from a laptop connected to port 1/3.  No other devices connected.  

I found something on the web about a fast boot mode that would disable hardware checks and the like, but this switch does not appear to support that (error from the CLI when I try).  An AI chatbot suggested configuring the switch to "install" mode (vs. bundle), but that actually made it 20 seconds SLOWER.  

Thank you in advance for any ideas or suggestions you may have.  

- Roger

[Leo Laohoo]

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@roger-pierson wrote:
to find that the switch alone exceeds that allowed time by a considerable margin.

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By how much?  Typical Cisco IOS/IOS-XE takes 5 minutes to boot up.  

Is the switch booting from the on-board flash or the SD-Flash?

Did the switch perform a micro-code update?

[roger-pierson]

Thanks for the reply.  I can't get into details about system requirements, but suffice it to say that there is no chance at all ove reducing boot time sufficiently to completely solve my problem, but every second helps.  

The switch is booting from internal flash, and is isolated from the Internet.  No chance that it is phoning home or doing any updates.  

[Joseph W. Doherty]

FYI

I found explanation of Catalyst switch "boot fast" but just one mention in IE3300 documentation.  For the latter, it appears to be a default because the documentation was how to disable it, for troubleshooting.  The documentation referenced other documentation for additional details, but it was not there (as far as I could find).

What EXACTLY did you enter to configure boot fast and the error message?

If you have a support contract, suggest you contact TAC.

BTW, a Cisco suggested IOS release is 17.09.06a.  Possibly worth considering trying.

[roger-pierson]

I appreciate the feedback.  The instructions I was using for boot fast are:

configure terminal
boot fast
end
write memory

 But the CLI did not recognize "fast".  

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Yup, I believe that's correct.