Announced collaboration with VMware in 2020Project Monterey, and announced the launch ofBluefield DPU designLater, during VMware Explore 2022, NVIDIA announced that it will collaborate with Dell to launch a new data center solution for artificial intelligence applications, which integrates Dell PowerEdge servers, NVIDIA's BlueField DPU and GPU design, and combines VMware's new vSphere 8 enterprise workload platform and VIDIA AI Enterprise software resources to accelerate artificial intelligence training and inference applications, while also meeting data processing, data science and zero-trust security needs.
NVIDIA emphasizes that, when combined with BlueField DPUs, server performance can be fully utilized within the new vSphere 8 enterprise workload platform. This involves offloading network resource allocation, control, and security computing requirements to the BlueField DPU, freeing the server's CPU to handle more computing needs while ensuring sufficient performance. This also enables distributed workload operation, improving data transfer efficiency and reducing latency.
As VMware announced the new vSphere 8 enterprise workload platform, NVIDIA also announced that its NVIDIA AI Enterprise software will fully support vSphere 8. This means that NVIDIA-certified Dell PowerEdge servers will be compatible with the new NVIDIA and VMware AI-ready enterprise platform and meet the needs of enterprises deploying data center and public cloud applications.
"As computing and networking workloads surge, AI and zero-trust security are driving the realignment of data center architectures for enterprises worldwide," said Manuvir Das, head of enterprise computing at NVIDIA. "VMware vSphere 8 offloads data center infrastructure services to NVIDIA BlueField DPUs, providing offload, acceleration, isolation, and enhanced security. This frees up valuable computing resources to meet the demands of smart factories for global enterprises."
“Dell and NVIDIA have been collaborating on the development of next-generation GPU-accelerated data centers, achieving groundbreaking results,” said Travis Vigil, senior vice president of portfolio and product management, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies. “With this new solution, combining NVIDIA’s powerful BlueField DPUs, NVIDIA GPUs, and Dell PowerEdge server platforms, Dell and NVIDIA continue their collaboration to deliver exceptional processing performance and security capabilities to help businesses solve some of the world’s toughest challenges.”
“Distributed modern applications with AI/machine learning and analytics capabilities are transforming data center architectures by leveraging acceleration and providing enhanced security as part of mainstream application infrastructure,” said Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general manager of VMware’s Cloud Platform Business Unit. “Dell PowerEdge servers, built with the latest VMware vSphere 8 innovations and accelerated by NVIDIA BlueField DPUs, can run critical enterprise cloud applications with next-generation performance and efficiency, while also effectively protecting enterprises from lateral security threats across multi-cloud environments.”
Businesses can now experience VMware vSphere 2 and the new NVIDIA AI Enterprise software running on the NVIDIA BlueField-8 DPU through free hands-on labs on the NVIDIA LaunchPad. Dell PowerEdge servers powered by the NVIDIA BlueField-2 DPU and compatible with vSphere 8 will be available before the end of the year.
