VMware ends NSX SmartNIC firewall sales

VMware stopped selling its NSX distributed firewall for SmartNICs (DPUs) after customers 'talked but didn't buy'. Distributed Services Engine support remains in Cloud Foundation, and the work may be reused in ESX for Arm.

• VMware adapted hypervisor and NSX for AMD and Nvidia SmartNICs, but not Intel
• Regular NICs gained throughput, reducing DPU benefits
• Distributed Services Engine remains in Cloud Foundation and is supported
• Work may move to the ESX version for Arm architecture