VMware vSphere Supported by Emulex HBAs, CNAs and HBAnyware

Emulex Corporation announced that its LightPulse Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) and Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) are fully supported with VMware in-box drivers as part of VMware vSphere 4, VMware’s operating system for building the internal cloud, which is transforming datacenters into dramatically simplified cloud infrastructure. VMware vSphere 4 will enable enterprises and service providers to deliver efficient, flexible, reliable IT as a service. Emulex LightPulse 8Gb/s Fibre Channel HBAs and 10Gb/s Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) CNAs are key components of this infrastructure, providing efficient, high-performance storage area network (SAN) and local area network (LAN) connectivity that complements VMware vSphere 4. In fact, Emulex HBAs and CNAs deliver more than double the IOPS performance in VMware vSphere 4 environments over the previous release, enabling dramatically more virtual machines (VMs) per host.
 
"VMware vSphere 4 will provide improved efficiency and increased scalability enabling higher levels of server consolidation, which drives the need for high-performance networking," said Shekar Ayyar, vice president, infrastructure alliances, VMware. "Emulex LightPulse HBAs and CNAs complement VMware’s next generation virtualization platform as customers continue to increase asset utilization through virtualization and move toward cloud infrastructures."
 
Emulex HBAs and CNAs are managed using HBAnyware, a centralized, automated management platform that provides a single interface for the deployment and administration of I/O connectivity that is optimized for converged, cloud and virtualized computing environments. The new release of HBAnyware provides enhanced virtualization features, support for converged networks and enterprise scalability features that improve management efficiencies and maximize SAN availability.
 
"As enterprises continue to move down the path of deploying on-demand and cloud computing infrastructures, virtualization will become more prevalent across every segment of the enterprise," said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development, Emulex. "To support this transition, Emulex is providing intelligent networking services that enable customers to automate, secure, virtualize and dynamically provision their data center environments within a single framework that will connect every server, network and storage device within the data center."
 
HBAnyware’s virtual port (Vport) mapping capability enables IT managers to obtain end-to-end associations between Vports and VMs within a single management window. Vport mapping saves IT managers’ time by allowing them to track storage traffic at the VM level, and therefore rapidly identify performance bottlenecks and re-provision virtualized resources within dynamic business environments. The latest release of HBAnyware also includes a complete built-in CIM client management interface, enabling a seamless, online device management experience within VMware environments, helping streamline data center administrative operations by providing comprehensive adapter discovery and management capabilities.
 
HBAnyware is the foundation of Emulex’s newly announced OneCommand Convergence Framework, a secure, automated and centralized enterprise management platform, which will enable centralized enterprise management for I/O services, connectivity, virtualization, security, QoS and other foundational elements within virtualized and converged networking environments.
 
Emulex is the only connectivity partner in the VMware Alliance Affiliate Initiative, a VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) Program member and a participant in the VMware I/O Vendor Program.