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Emulex First to Provide Virtual HBA Technology for Solaris Environments
Date: Thursday 31 July 2008
Author: PHILIP ALSOP
 Customers Benefit from Advanced Server Virtualisation Support and Scalability.
Emulex Corporation today announced that its LightPulse Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), available from Sun as the Sun StorageTek Enterprise Class 4Gb/s PCI Express HBA, now offer Virtual HBA technology within Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) environments. Enhanced capabilities such as virtual port management, available via Emulex's next generation HBAnyware management suite, are designed to enhance the overall functionality of Solaris Containers. "Once again, Emulex is demonstrating leadership in the area of virtualisation by providing enhanced capabilities for virtualised servers within Solaris environments," said Scott McIntyre, vice president of customer marketing, Emulex Corp. "Emulex pioneered Virtual HBA technology and is the only HBA vendor to support Sun's Solaris Containers for virtualised server environments."Emulex's family of 4Gb/s and 8Gb/s HBAs support Virtual HBA technology, which allows users to effectively virtualise the HBA functionality so each virtual machine running on a server can independently access its own protected storage. Coupled with Solaris Containers, Emulex Virtual HBA technology which leverages the NPIV standard, also allows customers to maintain usage of SAN management tools and best practices, such as fabric zoning and LUN mapping/masking. "Working with Emulex to support its Virtual HBA technology provides Solaris customers with a robust virtualised server solution that delivers the most enhanced capabilities available today," said Michael Wojnar, Networking Product Line Marketing Manager, Sun Microsystems. "This collaboration is critical because of the high correlation between virtualised servers and networked storage, and ensures that our customers deploying Solaris Containers now have a superior solution." Server virtualisation and blade server deployments continue to be a major driver for increased Fibre Channel SAN adoption. Leveraging Emulex HBAs with its next generation management suite, HBAnyware, provides customers with enhanced virtualisation features, such as virtual HBA management across all major operating system platforms including Microsoft, VMware, Linux/Xen and Solaris. Further, customers may now leverage the benefits of NPIV management functionality within a centralised single console. Online boot from SAN and enhanced diagnostics features also enable unmatched scalability and efficient management capabilities."We looked at the capability of the Emulex Fibre Channel HBAs and management tools and saw features that were not available from other suppliers," says Steven Ham, Senior Windows System Administrator at Home Interiors & Gifts, Inc. "With the HBA management tools, we get discovery and dynamic configuration capabilities that would otherwise require additional investment in tools running on other SAN components."In an effort to educate customers and channel partners on Emulex's connectivity solutions and enhanced HBAnyware management suite functionality, Emulex is offering a series of whitepapers and webinars.
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