NVIDIA GPU on AHV: The options (Video included)

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Kees Baggerman·Senior Technical Director at Nutanix – Former Citrix CTP – NVIDIA Enterprise Platform Advisor – 15+ years in EUC

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With the latest release of Nutanix AOS and the included version of Nutanix AHV we’re introducing support for NVIDIA GPU GRID technology as being the third hypervisor supporting these technologies.

GPU pass-through in AHV

With the previous version of AHV we already supported GPU pass-through in AHV, meaning you could assign a GPU (4 on a M10 board and 2 on a M60 board) to a VM and utilize the full capacity of that GPU ‘core’ on that VM. Although performance is great there, scalability is limited. 

vGPU in AHV

A vGPU is a segmented chunk of video RAM on the physical GPU, this is prescribed by NVIDIA in GPU profiles. The new release of GRID enables us to utilize the GPU processing in a timeslice manner which results in a more controlled resource usage and predictability. 

NVIDIA delivered a host driver for the AHV host to be installed and Nutanix modified the AHV host and UI to make sure that the installation and configuration is further simplified. The NVIDIA driver will be available on the NVIDIA portal and it can be installed on the AHV host/AHV guest to make it functional. 

Just to show the functionallity: 

3 major key plays for running GPU enabled workloads on Nutanix

To me the unique combination between Nutanix and NVIDIA delivers the following key plays for your EUC environment:

• vSphere? XenServer? AHV? Nutanix supports all three of them, which is unique in this space.
• Predictable performance and scalability, pay-as-you grow models for your EUC environment.
• Simplicity, 7 clicks from Prism to a vGPU enabled VM and simplified installation and configuration from an administrative perspective. 

This feature will be extended in newer releases, the obvious features we will be looking at are HA and live motion scenarios and we might be able to give you even better insights in your NVIDIA GPU usage so we can maximize your investment. 

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Kees Baggerman

Kees Baggerman is Senior Technical Director — Performance & Solutions Engineering R&D at Nutanix, where he leads a global team responsible for defining how enterprise applications are delivered on the Nutanix platform. A former Citrix Technology Professional and NVIDIA Enterprise Platform Advisor, he has spent 15+ years driving EUC strategy and technical direction across architecture, product, and customer success. He has been writing here since 2011 — sharing what he learns at the intersection of platform engineering and enterprise IT.

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Kees Baggerman

Senior Technical Director at Nutanix - Former Citrix CTP - NVIDIA Enterprise Platform Advisor - 15+ years in EUC

Kees Baggerman is Senior Technical Director — Performance & Solutions Engineering R&D at Nutanix, where he leads a global team responsible for defining how enterprise applications are delivered on the Nutanix platform. A former Citrix Technology Professional and NVIDIA Enterprise Platform Advisor, he has spent 15+ years driving EUC strategy and technical direction across architecture, product, and customer success. He has been writing here since 2011 — sharing what he learns at the intersection of platform engineering and enterprise IT.

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