Emulex 8Gbs FC HBAs Certified for Citrix XenServer

Emulex Corporation announced that its LightPulse family of 8Gb/s Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) are now verified for use with the new Citrix XenServer 5 virtualization software. Customers can now benefit from the enhanced virtualization features, advanced Linux driver architecture and robust bandwidth Emulex 8Gb/s HBAs offer.

"Today’s announcement demonstrates Emulex’s continued virtualization leadership within the Linux community," said Scott McIntyre, vice president, product marketing, Emulex Corporation. "As enterprise data center administrators continue to adopt Citrix XenServer to address their virtualization needs, they require reliable, flexible and easily-managed SAN connectivity solutions, all of which Emulex 8Gb/s HBAs offer."

Emulex 8Gb/s HBAs provide the increased bandwidth, manageability and CPU efficiency required to support the increased deployment of virtualized servers. In addition, Emulex and Citrix are collaborating to incorporate Emulex’s advanced LightPulse Virtual HBA technology, with N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) support, allowing customers to effectively ‘virtualize’ SAN connections so that each virtual machine has independent access to its own protected storage, while maintaining SAN management tools and best practices.

Citrix XenServer customers leveraging Emulex 8Gb/s HBAs will also be able to utilize Emulex’s HBAnyware management suite for efficient, scalable SAN connectivity management within a centralized single console. HBAnyware includes online boot from SAN and enhanced diagnostics features that enable unmatched scalability and efficiency.

"The true value behind Citrix XenServer is its ability to quickly and effectively virtualize servers in today’s dynamic data center environments," said Thom Bailey, director of product management, XenServer Product Group, Citrix Systems. "Emulex 8Gb/s HBAs complement this value proposition by offering an advanced architecture, robust performance and broad scalability for SAN connectivity management."

Emulex has joined the Citrix Ready Program, which ensures that reliable and interoperable solutions meet the needs of enterprise environments. Emulex LightPulse 2Gb/s, 4Gb/s and 8Gb/s HBAs support all XenServer editions (Express, Standard, Enterprise and Platinum).

For more information on Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel HBAs