VMware has quietly walked back its SmartNIC ambitions
Virtzilla’s bet on hyperscale hardware going mainstream didn’t excite customers, but may live on
VMware has ceased selling SmartNIC-focused firewalls, despite previously marketing the technology. SmartNICs, or data processing units (DPUs), are network cards with a small processor that handle security and networking tasks. Hyperscale clouds use these devices to offload workloads and improve isolation and security. VMware adapted its hypervisor to run on SmartNICs from AMD and Nvidia, and created a version of its NSX firewall for these devices.
However, VMware struggled to gain traction with Intel hardware and saw fewer benefits as conventional NICs evolved and increased throughput. The company has stopped selling the distributed firewall but will continue to support the Distributed Services Engine that enables Cloud Foundation to use SmartNICs. VMware is also working on simplifying the customer experience and innovating with memory tiering, global deduplication, and its AI Factory. The company's partnership with Nvidia means it may still be involved with SmartNICs in the future.
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