Emulex HBAs and CNAs Supported in New Microsoft System Center Solutions

Emulex Corporation announced that its LightPulse Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) are fully supported in Microsoft’s System Center suite of products including: Operations Manager 2007 R2 and the Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) feature of Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2. Emulex HBAs and CNAs provide the SAN and LAN connectivity and comprehensive features critical to ensuring Microsoft end users can reap the full benefits of data center virtualization.

"Emulex understands the complex challenges facing today’s data center and our industry-leading HBAs and CNAs are designed to help IT administrators do more with less," said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development, Emulex. "Using Emulex Fibre Channel HBAs and FCoE CNAs with Microsoft System Center solutions helps end users not only address their emerging data center requirements, but also drive server efficiency and performance without increasing costs."

In addition to supporting Operations Manager 2007 and Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Emulex was among the first partners to deliver a PRO-enabled Management Pack that monitors incoming and outgoing I/O traffic across its HBAs and CNAs. The Emulex PRO Pack enables real-time detection and pro-active remediation of traffic congestion by tracking adapters’ bandwidth utilization and generating alerts if pre-defined thresholds are reached. These alerts get relayed to Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, along with relevant PRO Tips, triggering appropriate action in terms of migrating virtual machines (VMs) to reduce I/O traffic load.

"With IT environments becoming more complex, more virtualized and more connected to the success of the business, Microsoft is committed to delivering System Center management solutions that simplify, automate and integrate IT operations," said Ryan O’Hara, Director, System Center Product Management, Management and Services Division, Microsoft. "By delivering System Center Virtual Machine Manager PRO support for the Emulex adapters, customers have powerful tools for attaining high levels of business continuity and optimized resource utilization within their IT environments."

Emulex Fibre Channel HBAs and FCoE CNAs offer
a number of comprehensive data center management features, including:

• Bandwidth that supports more virtual machines (VMs) per server than other solutions.
• Comprehensive virtualization capabilities with support for N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV), so each VM running on a server can independently access its own protected storage, maintaining SAN management tools and best practices at the VM level.
• Emulex HBAs and CNAs are managed using, HBAnyware, a centralized, automated management platform that provides a single interface for the deployment and administration of I/O connectivity that is optimized for virtualization and converged networking environments.
• Enterprise scalability and flexibility through support for Message-Signaled Interrupts eXtended (MSI-X), offering end users greater CPU efficiency, reduced system latency and improved I/O throughput – all of which contribute to increased server performance and reduced power consumption.
• Common driver model, which allows a single driver to support all Emulex HBAs and CNAs within the Microsoft Windows operating system, lowering administrative costs and speeding server deployment.
• Investment protection and seamless integration into existing SANs.

Emulex was the first Fibre Channel vendor to announce industry-leading NPIV support for Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and Virtual Machine Manager 2007. In November 2008, Emulex also delivered the first PRO pack supporting Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Emulex PRO-enabled Management Pack is officially published in the Microsoft System Center Pack Catalog.