NPIV for Opensolaris is delivered

NPIV (N Port ID Virtualization) for Opensolaris is delivered. NPIV allows one FibreChannel physical port to support mulitple virtual ports, and is especially useful for virtualized environments, such as Xen.

We actually delivered the core kernel changes a couple builds ago. This allows you to create and delete NPIV ports using the new fcadm command.

But, what's really useful is combining that with code with just put back to support xVM to build 97.  With xVM, administrators will be able to associate virtual ports with a specific DOMU. Disk devices that are visible (via LUN Masking and switch zoning) on that port will appear in the DOMU.

You'll need 4Gb/S (or faster) QLogic or Emulex HBAs, and the latest firmware on your 4Gb/S or faster switches.  Targets (for example storage arrays) don't need to do anything special to support NPIV.

There's an except from the to be updated SAN configuration guide on the Opensolaris NPIV project page that explains how to use the new kernel functionality.