vSphere ESXi 6.7 supports Receive Side Scaling (RSS) for UDP which provides significant improvement in throughput. Use this feature for workloads that are sensitive to network latency and bandwidth. Update your NSX Edge settings for performance enhancement.

Procedure

  1. (Optional) If all your ESXi hosts are upgraded to vSphere 6.7 Update 3, upgrade the hardware version for the NSX Edge virtual machine.
    For more information on upgrading VM hardware, see the VMware knowledge base article at https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1010675
    Note: Do not update the hardware version for NSX Edge VMs if any of your ESXi hosts are not upgraded to vSphere 6.7 Update 3 or later.
  2. Log in to the vSphere Web Client as an administrator, and connect to the ESXi host where your NSX Edge virtual machine (VM) resides.
  3. Power off the NSX Edge VM.
  4. Download the <virtual_machine_file>.vmx file from the datastore on the ESXi host.
    Create a backup of the .vmx file that you can restore to, and edit the file.

    For more information on editing files, see the VMware knowledge base article at https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1714 and https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1020302

  5. Add the new property, udpRSS=1.
    Skip this step if all your ESXi hosts are upgraded to vSphere 6.7 Update 3 and you upgraded the hardware version for the NSX Edge virtual machine.
  6. Add the following parameters: 
    ethernet0.pnicFeatures = "4"
ethernet1.pnicFeatures = "4"
ethernet2.pnicFeatures = "4"
ethernet3.pnicFeatures = "4"

    The ethernetX.pnicFeatures setting must be added manually for edge nodes that have been created for versions earlier than NSX-T Data Center 3.1. Edge node VMs created in NSX-T Data Center 3.1 already have the settings applied to the .vmx file. Starting NSX-T Data Center 3.1, when an edge node VM is re-deployed, the ethernetX.pnicFeatures setting is enabled.

  7. Save a backup of the edited .vmx file.
    If the edited version of your file is overwritten due configuration changes, copy the relevant sections from the backup into the current file. Do not replace the entire .vmx file with an older backup.
  8. Upload the edited <virtual_machine_file>.vmx file to the datastore.
  9. Power on the NSX Edge VM.