Systems and methods for InfiniBand fabric optimizations to minimize SA access and startup failover times. A system can comprise one or more microprocessors, a first subnet, the first subnet comprising a plurality of switches, a plurality of host channel adapters, a plurality of hosts, and a subnet manager, the subnet manager running on one of the one or more switches and the plurality of host channel adapters. The subnet manager can be configured to determine that the plurality of hosts and the plurality of switches support a same set of capabilities. On such determination, the subnet manager can configure an SMA flag, the flag indicating that a condition can be set for each of the host channel adapter ports.