Virtual Machine license: similar to DVS Multi Activation but licensed to operate permanently on a Virtual
Machine. For institutional use only. Contact Audinate sales for more information if you have a customer
that requires this type.
Dante Virtual Soundcard Virtual Machine requires an internet connection for initial activation only.
Dante Virtual Soundcard in Virtual Environments
Audinate is pioneering the future of AV by creating high quality, low-latency networked audio-video
products. The use of virtual machines and containerisation technologies is growing, and provides a new
opportunity for AV deployments using existing IT infrastructure.
This paper describes the additional features in Dante Virtual Soundcard (DVS) that are pertinent to
virtualisation, recommended tuning guidelines to achieve glitch-free audio in a virtual environment, and
system verification in a virtual environment.
This paper covers virtualisation of DVS on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. We do not cover
virtualisation of macOS. The hypervisor is assumed to be VMware ESXi.
Licensing
DVS for Virtual Machines uses the regular DVS installer available for download on the Audinate website.
We recommend always using the latest version available from the website.
A standard DVS license purchased via the Audinate website does not support the use of DVS on a virtual
machine. DVS licenses with virtualisation enabled can be purchased through your Audinate sales
representative.
Given the added complexity of running audio applications in a virtual machine, we encourage customers to
try before they buy, to confirm suitable performance in their specific environment and use case. To that
end, we are able to make a trial license of DVS available that supports virtualisation. See Section 4.3 -
Verification.
Features such as multi-activation licenses, command line activation, and activation through proxy servers
are also available. Please contact Audinate technical support for more information.
Recommended Tuning
Virtualisation is often used to consolidate hardware, and reduce costs (in terms of both initial hardware
purchases and power consumption). To that end, extensive use of power saving and resource
overprovisioning are often used, which negatively impact the real-time performance characteristics
required by audio applications