NVIDIA GRID – RDSH licensing (including XenApp)

I’ve had a few questions about what licensing is needed under the GRID 2.0 and up software licensing for the M60/M10/M6 GPUs for RDSH solutions such as XenApp. I think the confusion arises because it’s possible to use a number of GPU/vGPU different profiles for a server OS VM. The key point is to remember that the licensing is always per user.

NVIDIA GRID: New knowledge resources – just released!

The NVIDIA Knowledge base is going from strength to strength.  Since GRID moved to a software and fully-supported enterprise model there has been an acceleration in the information being published there that should carry on long-term.

Known issues, workarounds, how-to-guides and links to other places to find information on NVIDIA products including GRID and vGPU.

Yet MORE NEW articles have just been released:

NEW KB Articles – this week!

• A change occurs on the GRID licensing server such as IP address, or a change in account used to manage the licenses on the portal – resulting in error: FNE server is up and running”. May be necessary to delete the trusted store
• FAQs – VMware Blast Extreme and NVIDIA GRID – webinar 22nd March 2016
• End-point monitor / thin-client screen flickers when using NVIDIA GRID vGPU profile insufficient to support end-point native resolution
• Is the NVIDIA M60, K1, K2, K5000, other…. supported by vSphere/XenServer/Other Hypervisor?
• NVIDIA vGPU for XenServer is premium Citrix-licensed feature (includes errors/symptoms if licensing is incorrect)
• Monitoring NVIDIA GRID GPU and CPU metrics for Citrix XenServer including with XenCenter – including is the number of vCPUs per VM correct
• Incorrect BIOS settings on a server when used with a hypervisor can cause MMIO address issues that result in GRID GPUs failing to be recognized.
• Where to find the drivers for NVIDIA GRID 2.0 vGPU and up, including M60 and M6 drivers
• NVIDIA License Server – Changing default management port value
• Can NVIDIA Kepler (e.g. K1 / K2) and Maxwell (e.g. M60 / M6) GPU cards be mixed on a server host?

NEW KB Articles – last week

• Known Issues or Configuration Reasons: OpenGL/DirectX/GPU Acceleration Not Used when using GRID or Quadro products in virtualized environments including VMware and Citrix (links to multiple known issues in other vendors products)
• Monitoring the framebuffer for NVIDIA GRID vGPU and GPU-passthrough
• Autodesk AutoCAD 2016 selecting the wrong display adaptor
• AVID Media Composer requires a certified driver for use with a GPU/vGPU
• Enable GRID GPU acceleration for Adobe Illustrator 2014
• How to Query VBIOS when running vGPU
• What causes error: Source – NVWMI | Level – Warning | Instance and Method provider registration failed – (null) hr=0xFFFFFFFA (-6)?
• Having problems with new M6/M60 like VMs fail to power on, NVRM BAR1 error, ECC is enabled, or nvidia-smi fails (checking cards in graphics not compute mode)

As always I’d recommend a visit to the GRID user forums where you can ask questions with the users who include customers, partners and NVIDIA staff including developers who write the product and support staff: Have a look – HERE!

Where to find the drivers for NVIDIA GRID 2.0 vGPU and up, including M60 and M6 drivers

Quick blog, to highlight where you get GRID vGPU drivers and software for GRID 2.0 and higher. Whilst unsupported older products are available on the general NVIDIA download sites, newer products need to be obtained via the NVIDIA enterprise licensing portal.

Customers of GRID 2.0 and up NVIDIA products should receive access to an NVIDIA licensing portal account. Drivers for the GRID GPU cards such as the M6 and M60 can be obtained via this portal.

Two types of customers: 90 days evaluation (pre-sales), and paying customers

Evaluation Customers

1. Go to www.nvidia.com/grideval
2. Click “software download”
3. Fill in registration form
4. Get access to the NVIDIA licensing portal that will let you download 128 evaluation licenses and GRID software.

• If you are already registered, and need to return to the licensing portal, follow this link: https://nvidia.flexnetoperations.com/

 Paying Customers

1. The process is documented here: http://images.nvidia.com/content/pdf/grid/guides/quickstartguide.pdf
2. But just to capture the summary from this documentation

• When you purchase GRID, you receive email with PAK and registration link to the licensing portal.
• When you login to the portal, you get access to download all the licenses you have purchased along with GRID software.

Relevant Products:

Enterprise supported GRID vGPU drivers including M60 and M6 GPUs

Dial “B” for Business – New vGPU profiles – Info online

The fury of a CTP at shoddy blog info!

Yesterday I wrote a blog about the new NVIDIA GRID vGPU profiles such as the M60-1B that allow 4 monitors under the NVIDIA GRID Virtual PC (vPC) product licensing, expanding the options and lowering the TCO to use shared GPU for 2D/office applications with demanding end-clients or monitor usage.

Almost as soon as I had published it, Citrix CTP Tobias Kreidl emailed me asking why I hadn’t linked to the documentation discussed. I had to confess it was because the documentation was from the product download and I hadn’t found it online. Hell hath no fury like the #OldestCTPInTheWorld! So I went hunting a bit harder.

New NVIDIA vGPU profiles – dial “B” for business!

vGPU profiles are detailed in this guide with the product documentation and download

NVIDIA GRID has moved to a software model which allows the rapid deployment of new features and vGPU profiles to be rapidly released enabling new business models and needs. The vGPU profiles available are detailed in the product documentation within the “GRID VIRTUAL GPU – User Guide” that is in the product download.

GPU for office and business users

NVIDIA M60 GPUs – how they support CUDA, OpenCL and compute in “graphics” mode

Yesterday I wrote a blog about how to configure the M60 / M6 NVIDIA GPU boards for use for “graphics” mode or “compute” mode and how they were designed for different use cases such as VDI accelerated graphics and HPC (high-performance compute) respectively.

This has led to some questions as to whether “graphics” supports compute and CUDA like technologies. The answer is yes!

Mode switching on NVIDIA M60 (GRID 2.0) cards – modeswitch tool

Update (24th Feb 2016): Jason Southern has published an overview and how-to-guide on this tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAQhiNNFXxQ&feature=youtu.be

 

I had an enquiry this week asking what the “modeswitch tool” is and when a user should use it. Basically a GRID 1.0 K1/K2 user had been to a demo of the new GRID 2.0 M60 GPUs. As he hadn’t got M60 boards yet he didn’t have the tool and hadn’t downloaded it (so hadn’t read the very comprehensive documentation that comes with it explain when and why to use it) but he’d remembered some information from the demo and was trying to extrapolate that to his GRID 1.0 K1/K2 cards.