You need to configure NSX and enable Enhanced Datapath for vSphere Distributed Services Engine to offload some of the network operations from your server CPU to the DPU.
Configuring NSX host transport node on a DPU-based vSphere Lifecycle Manager-enabled cluster is similar to preparing the existing NSX cluster on vSphere Lifecycle Manager.
vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) backed by the DPU on
ESXi supports the offloading mode after
NSX is enabled. Traffic forwarding logic is offloaded from the ESXi host to the VDS backed by DPU.
Note: A DPU is supported only on vSphere Lifecycle Managed clusters. DPU requires a minimum version combination of vSphere 8.0,
NSX 4.0.1.1, and Edge hardware version 20.
To learn more about Network Offloads Capability, see What is Network Offloads Capability in the VMware vSphere Documentation.
Prerequisites
- vSphere offloads: DPUs are supported on hosts in a vSphere Lifecycle Manager-enabled cluster that are running on ESXi 8.0 version or higher.
Note: For vSphere offload capabilities, you do not need to purchase a separate NSX license. You just need to have the vSphere ENT + Term license and be on vSphere 8. NSX Manager is available as a part of vSphere ENT+.
- NSX offloads: To utilize the NSX DPU-based acceleration capabilities, you need to purchase an NSX Enterprise Plus Term license (Per Core basis) or an NSX Enterprise Plus with Threat Prevention Term license (Per Core basis).
Note: You do not need any additional NSX licenses if you have an NSX Enterprise Plus Term license (Per Core) or an NSX Enterprise Plus with Threat Prevention Term license (Per Core).For more information, see NSX Feature and Edition Guide.
- Lockdown mode is not enabled on any of the hosts. vSphere Lifecycle Manager might fail to prepare hosts that are enabled to function in Lockdown mode.
- There is not drift in images between hosts and cluster. Otherwise, you cannot enable vSphere Lifecycle Manager on the cluster. Remediate hosts in vCenter Server to ensure base image matches on host and cluster.
- vSphere Lifecycle Manager is enabled on the cluster. See VMware vSphere® documentation.
- Register Compute Manager with the following settings:
- Enable Trust and set access level to vSphere Lifecycle Manager. Trust is mandatory to establish communication between NSX and vSphere Lifecycle Manager.
- Enable Create Service Account.
- Create a transport node profile using a vSphere Distributed Switch host switch. NSX Virtual Distributed Switch (N-VDS) is not supported on vSphere Lifecycle Managed clusters.