The datacenter hummed like a calm, tireless ocean. Racks of hardware loomed under cool blue LEDs, and in Rack 7, Slot B, a pair of ProLiant blades sat like patient workhorses waiting for orders. Maya rubbed her temples, staring at the deployment checklist on her laptop: “ESXi 6.7 U3 — HPE custom image.” It read simple, but she’d learned the hard way that “simple” often hid small but costly traps.