1. A method to install a hardware management system on a management switch, the method comprising: in response to a power-on event of a management switch, executing a boot loader on the management switch to boot an operating system on the management switch; communicating with a virtual imaging appliance to retrieve an Internet protocol address for use by the management switch, the management switch coupled to a rack of servers to carry management communications for the rack of servers, the virtual imaging appliance separate from the rack of servers and temporarily communicatively coupled to the management switch during initialization of the rack of servers; in response to booting the operating system, obtaining from the virtual imaging appliance in communication with the management switch a uniform resource locator of a network-accessible location of installer software to install the hardware management system on the management switch, the virtual imaging appliance to configure a physical rack of hardware for use as a virtual server rack, and the hardware management system to manage the hardware for use in the virtual server rack; transmitting a request for the installer software to the virtual imaging appliance; installing a switch image included in the installer software on the management switch; in response to installing the switch image, rebooting the management switch to activate the switch image; in response to activation of the switch image, installing the hardware management system on the management switch using the installer software obtained from the network-accessible location; and initializing a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server on the management switch to serve Internet protocol addresses to computing devices in the rack of servers when the virtual imaging appliance is no longer connected.