You run the AI and ML applications on a vSphere Bitfusion client. Since vSphere Bitfusion 2.5, you can install and enable a vSphere Bitfusion client on any machine.
System Requirements for vSphere Bitfusion Client
- Тhe minimum disk space requirement for a vSphere Bitfusion client is 2 GB.
- The minimum memory requirement for a vSphere Bitfusion client is at least 150% of the GPU memory that applications request to use.
- The minimum virtual CPU (vCPU) requirement for a vSphere Bitfusion client is the same as the requirement for running applications with dedicated, local GPUs.
- The vSphere Bitfusion client must be installed on a machine that uses one of the following operating systems.
- CentOS 7
- CentOS 8
- Red Hat Linux 7.4 or later
- Ubuntu 16.04
- Ubuntu 18.04
- Ubuntu 20.04
Prerequisite for VMs
If the vSphere Bitfusion client runs on a virtual machine (VM), all VMware Tools Scripts must be enabled. When creating a new virtual machine, the scripts are enabled in the default configuration.
Additional Prerequisites for VMs
- vSphere Bitfusion client VM must run on a vSphere deployment managed by vCenter Server 7.0.
- The vSphere Bitfusion client must be installed on an ESXi host with version 6.7 or later.
- All VMware Tools Scripts must be enabled. When creating a new virtual machine, the scripts are enabled in the default configuration.
vSphere Bitfusion Client Enablement
You can enable a client in one of the following ways.
- If the client does not run on a VM that is part of the same vCenter Server instance as the vSphere Bitfusion servers, see Generate a Client Authentication Token.
- If the client runs on a VM that is part of the same vCenter Server instance as the vSphere Bitfusion servers, see Enable the vSphere Bitfusion Client.
The vSphere Bitfusion plug-in must be registered with vCenter Server. See Verify That the vSphere Bitfusion Plug-In Registers with vCenter Server.
Required Ports for vSphere Bitfusion Client
Verify that the following ports are not blocked by using a denylist or firewall rules. A vSphere Bitfusion client communicates with a vSphere Bitfusion server on the following ports.
| Port | Description |
|---|---|
| 45201 - 46225 | These ports are used by vSphere Bitfusion clients to communicate with the vSphere Bitfusion processes that handle CUDA requests. |
| 55001 - 55201 | These ports are used by vSphere Bitfusion clients to communicate with a task specific dispatcher process that runs on the vSphere Bitfusion server. The process requests a session and starts the service workers of the vSphere Bitfusion server that handle the workload. |
| 56001 | This port is used for vSphere Bitfusion intercommunication. vSphere Bitfusion servers communicate with each other on this port and vSphere Bitfusion clients use this port to start a task on a vSphere Bitfusion server. |
Web Browser Requirements for vCenter Server
To use vSphere Bitfusion, you require a web browser version that is supported by vCenter Server. For more information, see vSphere Client Software Requirements.
vSphere Bitfusion Compatibility and Interoperability
For a list of versions, models, and products that are compatible with vSphere Bitfusion, see the VMware vSphere Bitfusion Compatibility and Interoperability page.
