Qlogic Corp., a provider of Fiber Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), stackable switches and blade server switches, announced that its Fiber Channel HBA drivers are fully compliant and interoperable with the XenSource Xen Hypervisor 3.0, an open-source virtualization software code.

Xen Hypervisor 3.0 will be included in the upcoming releases of Linux operating systems (OSs) such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.

QLogic HBA drivers combined with the virtualization-enabled OSs will offer end-users the means to establish a fully integrated, reliable virtual server environment and reap the benefits of increased server efficiency.

The QLogic Fiber Channel HBA drivers include technology for the virtualization of physical HBA ports that work seamlessly with the Xen Hypervisor and Linux OS kernel.

"QLogic's support for Xen 3.0 highlights the compelling value of the Xen ecosystem," said Simon Crosby, CTO of XenSource Inc. "QLogic customers who deploy Xen integrated with enterprise Linux releases from our partners Red Hat and Novell can benefit from advanced storage virtualization capabilities that complement Xen paravirtualization, while XenSource's XenEnterprise will be able to deliver the same features to the Windows and multi-OS virtualization market, this year."

"The broad adoption of the open source standard Xen code-base maximizes the market opportunity for all vendors," added Crosby.

"QLogic has been working closely with the Linux development community to make virtual server environments a reality and bring the benefits of virtualization to our customers' data centers," said Amit Vashi, senior director of product marketing, QLogic Computer Systems Group.