While most major switch manufacturers have pledged interoperability with VMware NSX, and many are also resellers, HP has signed what appears to be the first VMware NSX OEM deal.

The deal also has HP providing support and consulting services for NSX. It's being announced Monday at VMworld, along with HP products and services related to other VMware offerings, including vSphere.

“On Sept. 28, all of the SKUs on our price list will be able to sell NSX licenses," and those sales will come from both the networking and server groups inside HP, says John Gray, the company's marketing leader for data center networking.

The companies' plan also includes obtaining OVDSB certification for the HP FlexFabric 5930 switch (OVSDB support has just been added to NSX, as part of version 6.2 of the software) and certifying the switch for interoperability with NSX.

They'll follow that up with certification of what they say will be the industry’s first jointly developed federated software-defined networking (SDN) and network virtualization. By getting HP's Virtual Applications Networks (VAN) SDN controller to work more tightly with NSX, the companies could give customers more visibility into their virtual networks so they can troubleshoot problem areas, Gray says.

Finally, HP's consulting services for VMware NSX are due to be available starting in January.

The overall agreement with VMware is "very significant from an HP perspective, in that we’ve had a 15 year partnership with VMware," he says. "We’re collectively turning our sights to the network now as sort of the last bastion, from a converged infrastructure perspective. That really needs to be virtualized to unleash a whole bunch of innovation, new operating models, and new economic models in the data center.”