ESXi 6.7/6.7 U1: NVIDIA ConnectX-4 onwards NICs NATIVE ESXi Driver for VMware vSphere User Manual v4.17.71.1

Overview

NVIDIA® Mellanox® native ESXi drivers enable industry-leading performance and efficiency as non-virtualized environments using hardware offloads such as RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) on VMware vSphere. NVIDIA® Mellanox® ConnectX®-4 onwards deliver 10/25/40/50 and 100GbE network speeds with ESXi 6.5 onwards, allowing the highest port rate on ESXi today.

Software Download

Please visit http://www.mellanox.com → Products → Ethernet Drivers → VMware Driver

Document Revision History

A list of the changes made to the User Manual are provided in Document Revision History.

Common Abbreviations and Acronyms

Abbreviation/Acronym

Description

B

(Capital) ‘B’ is used to indicate size in bytes or multiples of bytes (e.g., 1KB = 1024 bytes, and 1MB = 1048576 bytes)

b

(Small) ‘b’ is used to indicate size in bits or multiples of bits (e.g., 1Kb = 1024 bits)

FW

Firmware

HCA

Host Channel Adapter

HW

Hardware

LSB

Least significant byte

lsb

Least significant bit

MSB

Most significant byte

msb

Most significant bit

NIC

Network Interface Card

SW

Software

VPI

Virtual Protocol Interconnect

PR

Path Record

RDS

Reliable Datagram Sockets

SDP

Sockets Direct Protocol

SL

Service Level

MPI

Message Passing Interface

QoS

Quality of Service

ULP

Upper Level Protocol

vHBA

Virtual SCSI Host Bus adapter

uDAPL

User Direct Access Programming Library

Related Documentation

Document Name

Description

IEEE Std 802.3ae™-2002

(Amendment to IEEE Std 802.3-2002) Document # PDF: SS94996

Part 3: Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) Access Method and Physical Layer Specifications

Amendment: Media Access Control (MAC) Parameters, Physical Layers, and Management Parameters for 10 Gb/s Operation

Firmware Release Notes for Mellanox adapter devices

See the Release Notes relevant to your adapter device. For further information please refer to the Mellanox website.

MFT Documentation

Mellanox Firmware Tools User Manual amd Release Notes. For further information please refer to the Mellanox website.

VMware vSphere Documentation Center

VMware website

© Copyright 2023, NVIDIA. Last updated on Mar 20, 2024.