VMware vSphere 7 Integrates Bitfusion Technology to Enable
Enterprises to Efficiently Abstract, Pool and Automate Delivery of
GPU Resources On-Demand for AI / ML Applications
New Dell EMC Ready Solutions for AI and HPC to Leverage VMware
Software
Please replace the release dated June 2, 2020, with the
following corrected version due to new licensing terms for VMware
vSphere Bitfusion.
The corrected release reads:
VMWARE INTRODUCES DELIVERY OF ELASTIC
INFRASTRUCTURE FOR AI/ML APPLICATIONS WITH VMWARE VSPHERE 7
VMware vSphere 7 Integrates Bitfusion Technology to Enable
Enterprises to Efficiently Abstract, Pool and Automate Delivery of
GPU Resources On-Demand for AI / ML Applications
New Dell EMC Ready Solutions for AI and HPC to Leverage VMware
Software
VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) today introduced a new integrated
feature in VMware vSphere 7 that will enable enterprises to deliver
elastic infrastructure on-demand for artificial intelligence (AI)
and machine learning (ML) applications. This new feature—VMware
vSphere Bitfusion—is developed out of VMware’s 2019 acquisition of
Bitfusion, a pioneer in the virtualization of hardware accelerator
resources including graphics processing unit (GPU) technology.
Organizations use hardware accelerators such as GPUs to
dramatically improve the performance of AI/ML workloads that may
run several hours or longer. IT teams have come to realize that
these hardware accelerators are isolated islands—unable to be
shared across many parts of the business. The inability to share
those resources leads to inefficient and poor utilization of both
existing and newly purchased resources. The combination of
Bitfusion and VMware vSphere will help organizations achieve cost
savings, enable resource sharing out of the box, and deliver the
right hardware accelerator resource, like a GPU, to the right
workload at the right time.
“We aim to deliver the same value to GPUs that we delivered for
CPUs,” said Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general
manager, Cloud Platform Business Unit, VMware. “By breaking down
existing silos of GPU resources, organizations will be able to
achieve better utilization and efficient use of them through
sharing—resulting in immediate cost savings. More importantly,
organizations will be able to jumpstart new or stalled AI/ML
initiatives to drive their business forward by sharing those GPU
resources with their teams on-demand with VMware vSphere 7.”
VMware vSphere 7 with Bitfusion Enables Efficient GPU Pooling
and Sharing
AI and ML-based applications—deep learning training in
particular—rely on hardware accelerators to tackle large and
complex computation. With the newly integrated Bitfusion
capabilities, VMware vSphere 7 will enable enterprises to pool
their powerful GPU resources on their servers and share them within
their data centers. That will enable organizations to efficiently
and rapidly share GPUs across the network with teams of AI
researchers, data scientists and ML developers relying on and/or
building AI/ML applications.
Released in April 2020, VMware vSphere 7 was rearchitected into
an open platform using Kubernetes to provide a cloud-like
experience for developers and operators. The Bitfusion feature of
VMware vSphere 7 will leverage GPUs for applications running in
virtual machines or containers. Bitfusion can operate in a
Kubernetes environment such as VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, and is
expected to run side-by-side as customers deploy AI/ML applications
as part of an overall modern applications strategy. The Bitfusion
feature of VMware vSphere will be available through a single
download with no disruption to current infrastructure and will
seamlessly integrate with existing workflows and lifecycles.
VMware acquired Bitfusion last year with the intention to
integrate the technology into VMware vSphere. Bitfusion offered a
software platform that decoupled specific physical resources from
the servers they are attached to in the environment. This included
sharing GPUs in a virtualized infrastructure, as a pool of
network-accessible resources, rather than isolated resources per
server.
Dell Technologies Taps VMware for Dell EMC Ready
Solutions
Today, Dell Technologies also announced two new Ready Solutions:
Dell EMC Ready Solutions for AI: GPU-as-a-Service and Dell EMC
Ready Solutions for Virtualized High Performance Computing (HPC).
Read more details here.
With the new Dell EMC Ready Solutions for AI: GPU-as-a-Service,
customers will be able to quickly and conveniently take advantage
of GPUs to supercharge AI projects including predictive analytics,
machine learning and deep learning. These Ready Solutions will
incorporate VMware Cloud Foundation including VMware vSphere
Bitfusion along with Dell EMC servers, storage, networking and
services. These solutions will help customers to provide developers
and data scientists self-service access to a virtualized
accelerator pool to increase the utilization and efficiency of
these valuable resources.
The new Dell EMC Ready Solutions for Virtualized HPC (vHPC) will
make it simpler for organizations to run demanding AI applications
in VMware environments. The ability to virtualize HPC and AI
operations with VMware Cloud Foundation including VMware vSphere
Bitfusion or VMware vSphere Scale-Out Edition will offer rapid
hardware provisioning on demand, faster initial setup, and
configuration and ongoing maintenance with centralized management
and security. Dell EMC Ready Solutions for vHPC support the
intensive compute needs for bioinformatics, computational chemistry
and computer-aided engineering.
Supporting Quote
“What we're seeing among data science departments is that many
of their artificial intelligence applications are already running
in containers. There's a great opportunity for us to serve them
better by combining vSphere with Bitfusion and the native scaling
abilities of vSphere with Kubernetes to accelerate their research.”
– Johan van Amersfoort, Technologist EUC & AI, ITQ
Consultancy
Pricing and Availability
VMware vSphere Bitfusion is expected to become available in
VMware’s Q2 FY21. The new feature is an add-on license to the
VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus edition. The add-on license will
enable VMware to pinpoint customers using the new VMware vSphere
Bitfusion capabilities.
Additional Resources
- Read the “Announcing vSphere Bitfusion - Elastic Infrastructure
for AI/ML Workloads” blog post
- Learn more about VMware vSphere 7
- Connect with VMware on Twitter and Facebook
About VMware
VMware software powers the world’s complex digital
infrastructure. The company’s cloud, app modernization, networking,
security, and digital workspace offerings help customers deliver
any application on any cloud across any device. Headquartered in
Palo Alto, California, VMware is committed to being a force for
good, from its breakthrough technology innovations to its global
impact. For more information, please visit
https://www.vmware.com/company.html.
VMware, vSphere, Bitfusion, Tanzu, and Tanzu Kubernetes Grid are
registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. or its
subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200602005347/en/
Eloy Ontiveros VMware Global Communications 1.650.427.6145
eontiveros@vmware.com
Emily Mullen Archetype for VMware 1.212.331.8422
emily.mullen@archetype.co
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