News

posted on 26 February 2008 07:22

Emulex has integrated its host bus adapter (HBA) management software with VMware's ESX Server 3i, the first embedded, ultra-thin hypervisor for servers.

Customers will be able to manage LightPulse HBAs from the ESX 3i management facility. The integration enables remote and local management, centralized management of virtualized servers connecting to SANs, boot from SAN enablement, driver configuration, firmware updates, and other management capabilities.

Mike Smith, Emulex' worldwide marketing EVP, was delighted, as well he might be: "Our ongoing innovation with respect to the integration of virtualized servers and SANs continues to provide our end user customers with the robust tools for open and secure management."

Bob Laliberte, an analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group, confirmed this thought: "Emulex and VMware are staying ahead of the game by coupling Emulex's HBA management tools with VMware's embedded, ultra-thin hypervisor, VMware ESX Server 3i, giving customers the ability to seamlessly manage both their virtual and physical HBA resources that are attached to SANs."

The new management capabilities will be available for use with existing 4Gbit/s HBAs and the new LPe12000 family of 8Gbit/s HBAs to provide the I/O scalability necessary to support an increased number of applications running on VMware virtualized software.

This announcement strengthens the trend for VMware to become a networked storage management point.