Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d): Enhancing Intel platforms for efficient virtualization of I/O devices

Virtualization solutions allow multiple operating systems and applications to run in independent partitions all on a single computer. Using virtualization capabilities, one physical computer system can function as multiple "virtual" systems. Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) improves the performance and robustness of today's virtual machine solutions by adding hardware support for efficient virtual machines.
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) extends Intel's Virtualization Technology (VT) roadmap by providing hardware assists for virtualization solution. VT-d continues from the existing support for IA-32 (VT-x) and Itanium® processor (VT-i) virtualization adding new support for I/O-device virtualization.
Intel VT-d can help end users improve security and reliability of the systems and also improve performance of I/O devices in virtualized environment. These inherently helps IT managers reduce the overall total cost of ownership by reducing potential down time and increasing productive throughput by better utilization of the data center resources.

intel virtualization