Emulex Previews New HBAnyware Features

At VMworld Europe, 24-26 February 2009, Emulex demonstrates the new virtual port (Vport) mapping and CIM-based management capabilities for VMware ESXi in its upcoming release of HBAnyware 4.1, a centralised adapter management application.

The demonstration highlights the benefits of Emulex connectivity solutions operating in a virtualised and converged networking environment running VMware ESX and ESXi. Emulex is showcasing the seamless management and migration of virtual machines over 8Gb/s Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) storage networking topologies using VMware VMotionTM running on a combination of blade and rack mount servers.

Emulex HBAnyware provides comprehensive control of Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) and FCoE Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) within a centralised, cross-platform framework.

The new release adds Vport mapping, offering IT managers end-to-end relationship mapping between Vports and virtual machines (VMs) within a single management window.  The new Vport mapping capability saves IT managers’ time by allowing them to more rapidly track performance bottlenecks and re-provision virtualised resources within a dynamic business environment.

The upcoming HBAnyware release also includes complete CIM-based management capabilities for VMware ESXi environments, which streamlines data centre administrative operations by providing comprehensive adapter discovery and management capabilities for the VMware platform.

HBAnyware is the foundation for Emulex’s newly announced OneCommand Convergence Framework, which enables centralised enterprise management for I/O services, connectivity, virtualisation, security, QoS and other foundational elements within converged networks.

VMware and Emulex have developed a new best practices guide, ‘Network Convergence with Emulex LP21000 CNAs and VMware ESX,’  targeted at server, storage and network administrators, which provides information about network convergence using FCoE technology and an overview about how to extract the maximum benefits from network convergence using FCoE technology in a VMware ESX environment.