Environment:
+s4881 tyan motherboard with I/O Virtualization Technology (AMD IOMMU) enabled in the bios (4x 885 opterons)
+a pcie sas/sata card based on the supported 1068e chip.
+ESX 4 installed on the onboard nvsata freeing the 1068e based card to be available for pass-through, see http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101078...
VMware identifies that certain pci hardware is capable of being passed through an esx host to vms by a mechanism called vmdirectpath, see http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_4_vmdirectpath_host.pdf
My testbed machine specifications qualify for a functional vmdirectpath but in 'advanced settings' vsphere client continues to read that the 'host does not support passthrough configuration'.
The lsi 1068e chip based card tested is the br10i ibm flavor which otherwise integrates and functions flawlessly with the system.
Other 1068e based card variants will be tested. ESX 4 will be updated to u1 and u2? Anyone with any other ideas for my solution?
Is the motherboard/bios not correctly supporting IOMMU??
