VMware Multicloud Services Get DPU Boost

At its VMware Explore 2022 conference in San Francisco this week, VMware (NYSE: VMW) unveiled a series of interconnected product upgrades with the twin goals of improving security and optimizing performance.

In today’s announcements, VMware highlights improvements to its VMware NSX multicloud hypervisor and its VMware vSphere 8 workload software suite. Let’s take a closer look.

DPUs to the Rescue

Specifically, NSX and vSphere 8, which work together, now connect with data processing units (DPUs), also called smartNICs (smart network interface cards). Through a mechanism called the Distributed Services Engine added into vSphere 8, both products benefit from improved performance and better visibility for security purposes.

VMware officials state in a blog:

“[I]nstead of relying on simple packet inspection, the DPU-based NSX security implementation can contextualize network traffic based on the application generating the traffic and process traffic behavior accordingly in order to provide more accurate insights on security risks.”