Everyone's doing it - integrating VMware support into their environments. The latest vendor to do so is Xiotech, which last week introduced Virtual View, a software add-on to its ICON Manager management interface.

Xiotech's Virtual View automates the management of the Emprise 7000 and Magnitude 3D 4000 storage systems, ESX Server and virtual machines. It provides for monitoring, management and provisioning in virtual environments (Compare Storage Virtualization products).

The company isn’t the first to link its management software to VMware virtualization. A long list has grown: Pillar Data with its application-aware storage, Akorri with BalancePoint, and LeftHand Networks’ Virtual SAN Appliance for ESX Server, among others.

Virtual View lets storage administrators manage the storage attached to their virtualized host and automate the configuration across the server, virtualization and storage layers. As additions, moves or changes to virtual servers occur, the administrative burden on storage managers grows.

With Virtual View, administrators can map VMware ESX hosts and isolate the relationships between these virtualized servers and the storage they are attached to. They can automate the creation and expansion of virtual disks, logical unit number (LUN) assignments, and data store creations for ESX systems.

Virtual View is presently available at no extra cost to Xiotech customers. Customers can download Virtual View from the Xiotech supportXONE.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW.