NetXen Inc., the industry leader in 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) adapter port shipments, today announced that the NetXen NX3031 Intelligent NIC® driver supports VMware vSphere^TM and has in-box support in ESX 4.0. Launched today, VMware vSphere is the industry’s first cloud operating system, transforming datacenters into dramatically simplified cloud infrastructures to enable the next generation of flexible, reliable IT services. VMware vSphere gives customers uncompromising control, with greater efficiency, while preserving customer choice.

By supporting VMware vSphere, NetXen can further extend the value of its Intelligent NIC driver in customers’ next-generation datacenters and help enable customers to manage large collections of infrastructure — including CPUs, storage and networking — as a seamless, flexible and dynamic cloud environment.

NetXen NX3031 Intelligent NIC network adapters are already in-box for VMware ESX 4.0 and VMware Ready™ Certified, meaning they have completed the VMware Hardware Certification Program testing criteria for use with VMware vSphere and are now listed on the VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide. The VMware Hardware Certification Program enables VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program members to provide mutual customers with jointly supported hardware solutions. Passing the extensive certification testing helps ensure that the NetXen Intelligent NIC driver is compatible with VMware technology and ready for deployment in customer environments. NetXen’s Intelligent NIC products – including the NX3-20GCU, NX3-20GXR and NX3-4GBT network adapters – and OEM products based on the NX3031 are natively supported through drivers pre-integrated with VMware ESX.

“We are pleased that NetXen is taking the next step to helping provide customers with a more flexible, reliable and scalable computing environment,” said Bernie Mills, senior director, alliance programs, VMware. “By supporting VMware vSphere, our partners can further enable increased efficiency, control and choice for customers.”

“Virtualized platforms, multicore processors and high-performance networking form the basis of next generation datacenters," said Sanjeev Jorapur, vice president of technology, NetXen. "Using VMware vSphere in combination with NetXen's Quad Gigabit and 10GbE Intelligent NIC products brings significant business benefits to customers. We provide advanced I/O management features for virtualized platforms, enabling customers to deploy more VMs per system, and scale to meet the needs of heavier workloads, while lowering operating expenses."