Xiotech, a storage company which VMware already certifies for ESX, just created a new plug-in for its management product, ICON Manager, to interact with the hypervisor through the VMware APIs.
This add-on called Virtual View allows to create new VMFS volumes, virtual machines virtual hard drives (VMDK) and even guest OS (Windows 2003 only) NFTS volumes inside them, all from one single management console.
Xiotech published a nice video to introduce the issues of multiple management points (the storage, the ESX and the virtual machine) which clarifies how Virtual View can be useful.