We're struggling to determine what to do about GPU resources in knowledge worker VDI Deployments. VMware published this very interesting blog on the subject: VMware vSGA for Content-Rich VDI which makes a pretty compelling case for vSGA. From what I understand vSGA does a great job of allocating GPU resources to some users and falling back to CPU when needed, whereas a vGPU or MxGPU solution would require a dedicated cluster providing GPU to all users since the integrated driver can’t fallback cleanly in the event of over-commitment or licensing server failure.
So while vSGA sounds like a good fit for a non-engineering, knowledge worker VDI deployment, the lack of hardware available to run it makes it a tough choice right now. The hardware options seem strangely limited: If you’re on 6.7 U3, nothing from AMD, Nvidia doesn't support it on their current hardware. They even have a footnote in their release notes specifically excluding it from any but older GPUs (see docs.nvidia.com/grid/latest/product-support-matrix/index.html#abstract__only-horizon-supports-vsga )
So I’m stuck… I’d feel foolish buying very old cards to use vSGA and have them go obsolete in a year, but I also don’t think vGPU makes sense for us: Limited additional performance benefits (See above article), and significant administrative limitations – needing entire cluster configured with it, no true vmotion, etc.
For now we’re left with just not doing any GPU acceleration for knowledge worker VDI, which is a shame because we’ve got the budget allocated for hardware and software licenses, but can’t find anything to buy, and ultimately it’s going to diminish the VDI experience for end users.
Very interested to hear what others are doing about GPU in knowledge worker VDI deployments.
Jeff
