Utilizing HBAnyware, Emulex utilities and third party applications are able to uniformly discover, report on, and manage both local and remote Emulex HBAs from a single management console or application. An integrated and robust set of OS independent APIs, based on OS specific libraries, are included with the framework for use by host-based applications utilizing Emulex driver capabilities. Embedded environments directly attached to the fabric have equivalent capabilities via Emulex’s FC-GS-3 CT based command set. In addition, a "remote" equivalent of the widely used Common HBA API (FC-MI, Appendix A) has been added to HBAnyware. With this addition, host-based software management applications will no longer be required to deploy application specific agents to all hosts on the fabric.

HBAnyware Becomes Standard Emulex Product

Today, OEMs using Emulex HBA driver technology include EMC, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM and Unisys, and have deployed storage solutions with more than 750,000 Emulex Fibre Channel HBAs into Fortune 1000 data centers worldwide. HBAnyware is fully compatible with Emulex’s entire product line and supported installed base. As a driver-based technology, HBAnyware can be easily deployed, leveraging these customer investments in network and storage environments. In addition, Emulex is enabling its OEM customers and industry partners to incorporate HBAnyware functionality using API extensions that Emulex intends to submit for standards adoption.

Remote Firmware Download Utilities and a new Command Line Interface

With the introduction of HBAnyware, Emulex will be including with each driver kit a graphical standalone Remote Firmware Download Utility, along with a Command Line Interface (CLI) for scripted control of many HBAnyware capabilities. Based on HBAnyware, these new utilities include:

• Local and remote discovery of Emulex HBAs
• Adapter inventory/audit and status information
• HBA FC Port status, attributes and statistics
• Local and remote management and real-time installation of HBA firmware

An Infrastructure for Third Parties

HBAnyware implements a rich set of client/server component technologies and capabilities:

• Remote Management Client (RMC)
• Remote Management Agent (RMA)
• Host resident CT server for use with the RMA
• Remote Management Agent security using FC-GS-3 Authenticated CT
• Adapter proxy capabilities, allowing any one Emulex HBA in a host to "manage" other HBAs in the same host
• Ability to bi-directionally test the data path between any two Emulex HBAs (with variable sized CT payloads)
• Ability to reset/reinitialize a local or remote host bus adapter port
• Ability to push requisite Emulex data files to a remote Emulex managed data file repository on each host (HBA firmware images)
• HBAnyware is tightly coupled with the driver deployed with it, guaranteeing highly reliable information, immediate response times to events on the fabric, and intelligent exception/error handling
• Full support for all generations of Emulex Fibre Channel HBAs

Three (3) programmatic interfaces are provided:

• An Emulex defined FC-GS-3 CT based command set for in-band Fibre Channel device usage (switches and appliances may utilize the protocol)
• A Command Line Interface (CLI) for local or remote scripted actions
• C-language libraries/APIs for host based applications (RMAPI)

Remote Management API (RMAPI)

Emulex’s RMAPI includes a variety of functions and capabilities. To shield developers from internal HBA operational details, high-level functions are supplied for many operations, such as downloading firmware. Components of the framework on the local hosts actually do "the heavy lifting," guaranteeing the operational integrity of the actions requested. Example functions include:

• (detailed) Emulex Attribute Blocks are currently defined: Server, Adapter, Port, Port Statistics, Port FCP Mappings/Bindings and FC-3 Management Attributes
• A single macro, RM_UpdateFirmware, is defined for the four function calls required to complete a local or remote firmware download (Send, Import, Verify, and Download). All firmware operations are handled by the Framework itself.
• Remote cHBA API - RMAPI migrates the local capabilities provided by the current cHBA API libraries to include both local and remote access to this information for Emulex HBAs.

As an extensible framework for both local and remote usage, new and existing Emulex software functionality will be incrementally added to HBAnyware, enhancing current SAN management products and capabilities, as well as enabling entirely new classes of product functionality.

Supported Environments

User Interfaces:

Windows GUI, Java GUI for Unix and Command Line Interface for all implementations

Operating System Platforms and Driver(s):

Windows NT, 2000, and .NET 2003 (when released by Microsoft)
SCSIPort Miniport v5.00, Port v2.20, and STORPort Miniport v1.00 (for .NET 2003)
Solaris 2.6, 7, 8, 9 - v5.10 driver
Linux support pending
Refer to Emulex web site for updated support information

HBAs:

All Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel HBAs are supported

Relevant Standards:

FC-GS-3, FC-MI, FC-FS and FC-PH

This document refers to various companies and products by their trade names. In most, if not all cases, their respective companies claim these designations as trademarks or registered trademarks. This information is provided for reference only. Although this information is believed to be accurate and reliable at the time of publication, Emulex assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Emulex reserves the right to make changes or corrections without notice.