Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX) today announced that its LightPulse(r) Virtual Host Bus Adapter (HBA) technology, with industry-standard N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) support, is integrated into the latest release of VMware Infrastructure, announced today. Industry-standard NPIV enables end users to leverage the benefits of combining server virtualization with traditional storage area network (SAN) best practices in their data centers. This represents a first major innovation delivered from VMware's Community Source program, and reflects Emulex's collaboration with VMware on this technology.
Emulex's LightPulse Virtual HBA technology, composed of Emulex 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBAs and NPIV driver technology, enables customers to effectively 'virtualize' SAN connections so that each virtual machine has independent access to its own protected storage. In addition, Emulex LightPulse Virtual HBA technology enables storage and SAN fabric administrators to manage connections from virtualized machines in the same way, and with the same tools, as traditional physical hardware-based servers. The end result is greater storage security, enhanced management and migration of virtual machines and the ability to implement SAN best practices such as LUN-masking and zoning for individual virtual machines.
"Today's announcement reflects Emulex's strong relationship with VMware, as well as the depth of joint technology development and interoperability testing between the two companies," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of worldwide marketing, Emulex Corporation. "Server virtualization is driving a significant portion of the SAN market, and our LightPulse Virtual HBA technology is a testament to Emulex's vision for an innovative, complete solution that enables the next generation of enterprise data centers."
This announcement follows Emulex's unveiling of a storage networking solution for VMware environments, which combines Emulex 4Gb/s HBAs with Cisco's MDS Fibre Channel switches. This solution, now integrated in VMware Infrastructure, will give customers higher levels of storage management integration, while improving their overall data center efficiency.
Emulex played a leadership role in introducing and delivering industry-standard NPIV to the VMware Community Source Program. Emulex is also a member of the VMware Technology Alliance Partner Program. To learn more about Emulex's LightPulse Virtual HBA technology, please go here.