TLDR Tech / DevOps
How we reduced core unit boot time from hours to minutes
Cloudflare slashed server boot times from four hours down to three minutes across nearly 2,000 core servers after a routine firmware update caused machines to waste roughly 20 minutes probing each failed network boot interface before finding the correct one. The fix involved reprogramming the boot sequence to declare the correct network interface upfront, though implementation required workarounds for lazy-loaded UEFI data structures, vendor-specific naming inconsistencies, and immutable firmware settings that initially blocked configuration changes.
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