Set up and configure DPUs on Dell Servers for VMware's vSphere Distributed Services Engine
DPUs, formerly known as SmartNICs, have been on the horizon since 2022. But after the completion of Project Monterey, DPUs are being productized as the vSphere Distributed Services Engine in vSphere 8 and NSX 4. They can also accelerate VMware Horizon, mostly by increasing the number of virtual Desktops, which can be hosted per ESXi server. This post covers the initial configuration required as a first-time setup to use the DPU for ESXi / vSphere Distributed Services Engine in conjunction with VMware NSX. General information Currently DPUs from AMD Pensando and NVIDIA Bluefield are available for rack servers. At Dell the following models supports DPUs: Dell PowerEdge R750 (Intel IceLake) Dell PowerEdge R760 (Intel SapphireRapids) Dell PowerEdge R7615 (AMD Zen4 Genoa single socket) Dell PowerEdge R7625 (AMD Zen4 Genoa dual socket) The one height unit variants of the models above Dell PowerEdge R6XX All DPUs at dell comes with two components: 1. A network daughter card a.
