White paper on VPIV

NPIV is the acronym for “N_Port ID Virtualization�?, a T11 ANSI standard which was developed by Emulex and IBM, to provide the capability for a fabric switch to register several WWPNs on the same physical HBA port. Emulex and Cisco are collaborating with VMware on interoperability and end user education to help both the industry and end users understand the benefits of NPIV technology in a VMware environment. The purpose of this paper is to provide some fundamental insight into NPIV and to help end users discover the practical use cases and deployment scenarios for maximizing the benefits of this new capability.