Unable to power on Virtual Machine configured with SR-IOV

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• An attempt to power on the virtual machine via vCenter Server user interface (UI) results in a failure with the errors below :-
  
  Error Message 1 :- 
  No host is compatible with the virtual machine

      

         Error Message 2 :-

    "Insufficient resources. One or more devices (pciPassthruX) required by VM <VM Name> are not available on host <Hostname>"

Environment

VMware ESXi

Cause

• ESXi host is configured with Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) enabled on a specific network interface controller (vmnic's are part of PCI card).
• The Virtual machine (VM) has been provisioned with a Virtual Network Interface Card (vNIC) using the SR-IOV adapter type, implemented via PCI device passthrough.

 

• The issue is attributed to an insufficient allocation of Virtual Functions (VFs) required to power on the virtual machine, following the VM's configuration with an SR-IOV vNIC, as outlined in the reference documentation "Assign a Virtual Function as SR-IOV Passthrough Adapter to a Virtual Machine"

Resolution

• Ensure that memory is reserved for the specific virtual machines configured with SR-IOV.
  • Right click on the Virtual Machine --> Edit Settings --> Reserve the memory as shown in the screenshot below 
    
    
• Subsequently, increase the number of Virtual Functions (VFs) on the PCI device where the vmnics are configured for SR-IOV
  • Place the ESXi host into the maintenance mode.
  • Go to the ESXi host --> Configure--> PCI devices --> Select the PCI device that has SR-IOV feature enabled --> click on "CONFIGURE SR-IOV" --> Enter the number of Virtual Functions based on the total availability listed --> Click on Ok.

• Power on the VM.

Additional Information

If the resolution does not solve the issue, open a Networking Support Case with Broadcom Support using the instructions at Creating and managing Broadcom support cases to determine the best course of action.