VMware has announced VMware’s hypervisor software, VMware ESX 3i, is expected to be broadly integrated and available beginning March 31, 2008, on 10 models of HP ProLiant servers.

VMware ESX 3i for HP ProLiant features VMware virtualisation capabilities with full support for HP System Insight Manager (SIM), the set of server management tools that come standard with HP ProLiant servers. According to the release, this integrated offering enables customers to deploy VMware’s base hypervisor within minutes of booting up a ProLiant server, providing greater speed and simplicity for customers new to virtualisation, as well as increased capacity expansion for customers who are already use VMware’s datacentre virtualisation and management suite, VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3).

In addition, HP and VMware have worked together to make available software bundles that combine the VMware Infrastructure 3 software suite and additional automation products, with HP Insight Control Environment.

Diane Greene, president and chief executive officer, VMware, said, “Today’s announcement is a major step forward in accelerating the adoption of virtualisation by combining our respective strengths: HP’s global footprint with the ProLiant platform and rich heritage in platform manageability, and VMware’s portfolio of products for datacentre virtualisation, desktop virtualisation, and management and automation solutions for both the datacentre and desktop.”

"These unified offerings from HP and VMware help customers reduce costs and simplify the management and automation of virtual environments, leading to improved quality of the services that customers deploy,” said James Mouton, general manager and senior vice president, Industry Standard Servers, HP.

VMware ESX 3i for HP ProLiant provides integration with HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM). HP Systems Insight Manager 5.2 software supports association and discovery for VMware ESX 3i.

In addition to SIM 5.2, VMware ESX 3i for HP ProLiant supports management tools from the HP Insight Control portfolio to unify the management of virtual and non-virtual machines.