vSphere 6.5 and later supports PVRDMA only in environments with specific configuration.

Supported Configurations

To use PVRDMA in vSphere 6.5, your environment must meet several configuration requirements.

Table 1. Supported Configurations for Using PVRDMA
Component Requirements
vSphere
  • ESXi host 6.5 or later.
  • vCenter Server or vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 or later.
  • vSphere Distributed Switch.
Physical host
  • Must be compatible with the ESXi release.
Host Channel Adapter (HCA)
  • Must be compatible with the ESXi release.
    Note:

    Virtual machines that reside on different ESXi hosts require HCA to use RDMA . You must assign the HCA as an uplink for the vSphere Distributed Switch. PVRDMA does not support NIC teaming. The HCA must be the only uplink on the vSphere Distributed Switch.

    For virtual machines on the same ESXi hosts or virtual machines using the TCP-based fallback, the HCA is not required.

Virtual machine
  • Virtual hardware verison 13 or later.
Guest OS
  • Linux (64-bit)

To verify that your physical hosts and HCAs are compatible with ESXi releases, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.

Note: Attempts to enable or configure unsupported features with PVRDMA in the vSphere Web Client might result in unexpected behavior in your environment.