Quoting from the official announcement:
Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX), the most trusted name in storage networking connectivity, today announced that its LightPulse(r) Fibre Channel HBAs used within VMware ESX Server are qualified and supported by HP for storage area network (SAN) connectivity to HP StorageWorks XP, EVA and MSA arrays, and HP ProLiant server solutions. This qualification enables customers implementing VMware virtual infrastructure software -- for partitioning, consolidating and managing servers in mission-critical environments -- to deploy HP-branded HBAs from Emulex for high performance SAN connectivity to the HP StorageWorks and HP ProLiant server solutions.
"The increased deployment of virtualized server environments is driving the need for more servers to leverage SANs and Emulex is leading the way with superior connectivity solutions for HP StorageWorks and VMware ESX Server environments," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of worldwide marketing at Emulex. "Teaming with HP and VMware not only underscores the importance of Emulex's presence in virtualized environments, but ensures end users may continue to deploy the superior SAN connectivity solutions they have already standardized on throughout their mission-critical data centers."
The Emulex HBAs supported by HP include the LP1050-based models of single- and dual-channel HBAs. The Emulex LP1050 family of single- and dual-channel HBAs delivers exceptional performance, reliability and scalability. Customers who have standardized their data centers on Emulex HBAs for SAN connectivity may continue to reap the same performance and seamless management capabilities, while also realizing fully compatible solutions for virtualized environments.
"We are working closely with Emulex to deliver the most robust SAN storage and connectivity offerings on the market today," said Kyle Fitze, director of SAN marketing, StorageWorks Division, HP. "Leveraging our long-standing relationship with Emulex and VMware, we are able to deliver trusted, high-performance server and storage solutions for our customers' virtualized server environments."
In addition to today's announcement, Emulex is working closely with VMware on a number of initiatives, including the forthcoming release of Emulex's LightPulse Virtual HBA technology to the broader market. As more IT managers are looking to virtual infrastructure for consolidation, increased resource utilization and management flexibility, the Emulex LightPulse Virtual HBA technology in conjunction with VMware VMotion technology and VMware ESX Server, enables each virtual machine or guest operating system to own and access a dedicated World Wide Port Name (WWPN), even when several virtual machines are sharing the same physical host bus adapter. This new capability enables each guest to be managed independently, using SAN best practices for security and configuration management, such as fabric-based zoning and storage Logical Unit (LUN) mapping.
"VMware continues to integrate broad support for the Emulex LightPulse family of HBAs because the majority of VMware virtual infrastructure deployments are SAN-attached," said Patrick Lin, Director of Product Management, VMware. "Through the powerful combination of virtualization and shared storage, our customers are able to implement solutions, such as server consolidation and containment and business continuity that improve the efficiency, cost-effectiveness and flexibility of their IT operations."
For more information on the Emulex LightPulse family of HBAs, including the Emulex LightPulse Virtual HBA technology, please visit http://www.emulex.com/pdfs/wp-nport.pdf.