Dell PowerEdge R6515 User Manual

Technical white paper

Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers with NVIDIA GPUs and VMware vSphere

How to configure Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers with NVIDIA GPUs and VMware vSphere

Abstract

This white paper describes how to configure Dell EMC PowerEdge servers with Nvidia GPUs and VMware vSphere. Also included are a support matrix of GPUs supported on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers, as well as GPU-specific troubleshooting information.

March 2020

Revisions

2 Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers with NVIDIA GPUs and VMware vSphere | Technical white paper

Revisions

Date

Description

March 2020

Initial release

Acknowledgements

This paper was produced by the following: Author: Hypervisor Engineering Support: Shiva Katta Other: Sherry Keller, and Ramya D R, IDD team

The information in this publication is provided “as is.” Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Use, copying, and distribution of any software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.

Copyright © <2020> Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Table of contents

3 Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers with NVIDIA GPUs and VMware vSphere | Technical white paper

Table of contents

Revisions............................................................................................................................................................................. 2

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................................. 2

Table of contents ................................................................................................................................................................ 3

Executive summary ............................................................................................................................................................. 4

1 Use cases for NVIDIA GPUs in vSphere ..................................................................................................................... 5

1.1 VMware vDGA .................................................................................................................................................... 5

1.2 NVIDIA grid vGPU .............................................................................................................................................. 5

1.3 VM DirectPath I/O GPU ...................................................................................................................................... 6

2 Hardware and software requirements .......................................................................................................................... 7

2.1 Configuring vDGA ............................................................................................................................................... 7

2.1.1 Configuring Windows VM with direct access to the GPU ................................................................................... 7

2.1.2 Configuring vDGA feature with vSphere ............................................................................................................ 7

2.2 Configuring vGPU ............................................................................................................................................... 8

2.3 Configuring VM DirectPath I/O GPU .................................................................................................................. 9

3 GPU support matrix with Dell EMC PowerEdge servers............................................................................................ 10

3.1 PowerEdge yx5x servers supporting NVIDIA GPU .......................................................................................... 10

3.2 PowerEdge yx4x servers supporting NVIDIA GPU .......................................................................................... 11

3.3 PowerEdge yx3x and yx2x servers supporting NVIDIA GPU .......................................................................... 12

3.4 vGPU support matrix ........................................................................................................................................ 13

3.4.1 vGPU supported servers and GPUs matrix ...................................................................................................... 13

3.5 vDGA support matrix ........................................................................................................................................ 14

3.5.1 vDGA certified on PowerEdge servers with NVIDIA GPUs .............................................................................. 14

3.5.2 vDGA certified on Dell EMC VxRail servers with NVIDIA GPUs ...................................................................... 15

4 Known issues and resolution ...................................................................................................................................... 16

Executive summary

4 Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers with NVIDIA GPUs and VMware vSphere | Technical white paper

Executive summary

Virtualization technology removes hardware from the network equation, and allows you to host multiple and varied workloads that share the same hardware. In its infancy, virtualization technology was limited to CPU, memory, storage, and network applications. Now, however, virtualization can also benefit graphic workload balancing. The same common set of IT resources can be used to host multiple graphic workloads, or to provide virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for loads as low as simple document editing and as large as gaming design.

Selecting hardware combinations and configurations can significantly impact the successful deployment of VDI over VMware. The following provides guidance on selecting VMware vSphere features for VDI, and discusses troubleshooting solutions for issues you might encounter during setup and deployment.

Use cases for NVIDIA GPUs in vSphere

5 Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers with NVIDIA GPUs and VMware vSphere | Technical white paper

1 Use cases for NVIDIA GPUs in vSphere

The use cases discussed here are divided into VDI and non-VDI. NVIDIA GPUs are further classified into those used by multiple users and those operating in dedicated mode. This technical white paper briefs about configuring the NVIDIA GPUs with vSphere for various.

The features available in vSphere with NVIDIA GPUs on the Dell EMC PowerEdge servers are:

• vDGA (Virtual Dedicated Graphics Accelerator)

• vGPU (Virtual GPU)

• VM DirectPath-I/O GPU

1.1 VMware vDGA

vDGA provides direct pass-through to a physical GPU. This method provides the following:

• Unrestricted and dedicated access to the GPU.

• Best performance to the user as the GPU device is dedicated to a single VM which accesses the

GPU directly.

• Limits the GPU usage to a single VM and prevents the use of Motion feature.

In this method, the GPU device is passed through to the VM. The relevant GPU driver must be installed inside the VM guest operating system. No special drivers are required to be installed in ESXi.

1.2 NVIDIA grid vGPU

NVIDIA vGPU allows sharing one or more NVIDIA GPUs to multiple VMs. This method provides the following:

• Direct access to the physical GPU on the ESXi host across multiple VMs.

• Options for multiple vGPU assignments to a single VM.

• GPU-enabled VMs can be migrated to remote hosts with GPUs.

In this method, GPU profiles are created based on the physical GPU and those profiles are mapped to the VMs. This method requires software components installed in both the ESXi host and the VM. The VM that has the GPU profiles attached requires a GPU driver. The ESXi host also requires that the vGPU manager software is installed. The vGPU option is used for VDI and virtual workstations.

Use cases for NVIDIA GPUs in vSphere

6 Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers with NVIDIA GPUs and VMware vSphere | Technical white paper

1.3 VM DirectPath I/O GPU

In this approach, a GPU is assigned as a PCIe pass-through device to the VM. The guest operating system deployed in a VM can access the GPU directly and can offload all the relevant computational or graphical operations to the GPU. The vGPU is not shared across the VMs. Performance is expected to be closer to a bare-metal deployment. When VM DirectPath is used, other vSphere functions such as vMotion, DRS, and cloning, or snapshots are not supported. This feature is targeted for machine learning, HPC, and other AIrelated workloads in virtualized environments.

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