Are NI Products Supported on Virtual Machines (VMs)?

Issue Details

Solution

For NI Software:

• NI Software should generally run as expected on VMs (though not officially supported). 

For NI Hardware:

• NI hardware is not supported on VMs due to communication challenges and the possibility of incorrect data. Virtual machines generally cannot access the PCI bus. As such, PCI- and PCIe-based instruments are inherently incompatible with VMs, as are MXI connected VXI, PXI and PXIe chassis. Modern VMs often allow access to USB ports (known as USB pass-through). Given the hosted nature of the VM, the variable speed of data transfer associated with USB pass-through may cause varying errors when communicating with DAQ devices. Ethernet pass-through is fairly ubiquitous on VMs, and should allow for communication with remote devices, but this isn't guaranteed.

For NI Volume License Manager (VLM):

• In general, NI VLM is supported in virtualized environments as long as the virtual machine is running an operating system that is supported by NI VLM. For more information and considerations when running NI VLM on a VM, see Volume License Manager on a Virtual Machine .

Additional Information