HP SAN manual Zoning a fabric, Zoning concepts, Zones

Zoning a fabric

If HAFM is used to manage the fabric, it is recommended to use HAFM to manage the fabric zoning. If HAFM is not used and other McDATA switch models are in the fabric, it is recommended to use HAFM Basic or EFCM Basic, or in earlier firmware versions, SANpilot or Embedded Web Server to manage the fabric zoning. If all switches in the fabric are McDATA 4Gb SAN switches, use McDATA Web Server to manage the fabric zoning. Zoning enables you to divide the ports and devices of the fabric into zones for more efficient and secure communication among functionally grouped nodes.

The McDATA 4Gb SAN Switch supports port/domain zoning in Standard/Open Fabric interop mode, other M-Series directors and edge switches do not. Therefore, only WWN zoning is supported in Standard/Open Fabric interop mode when McDATA 4Gb SAN Switch is attached to other McDATA switches. Fibre Channel address zoning is not supported by other McDATA switches, and is not recommended for use in McDATA 4Gb SAN Switch.

This subsection addresses the following topics:

•Zoning concepts, page 37

•Managing the zoning database, page 40

•Managing the active zone set, page 43

•Managing zones, page 46

•Merging fabrics and zoning, page 48

Zoning concepts

The following zoning concepts provide some context for the zoning tasks described in this section:

•Zones, page 37

•Zone sets, page 38

•Zoning database, page 38

•Zoning limits and properties, page 39

Zones

Zoning divides the fabric for purposes of controlling discovery and inbound traffic. A zone is a named group of ports or devices. Members of the same zone can communicate with each other and transmit outside the zone, but cannot receive inbound traffic from outside the zone.

Zoning is hardware enforced on a switch port if the sum of the logged-in devices plus the devices zoned with devices on that port is 64 or less. If a port exceeds this sum, that port behaves as a soft zone member. The port continues to behave as a soft zone member until the sum of logged-in and zoned devices falls back to 64, and the port is reset. Zoning is hardware enforced only when a port/device is a member of no more than eight zones whose combined membership does not exceed 64. If this condition is not satisfied, that port behaves as a soft zone member.

Membership in a zone can be defined by switch domain ID and port number, device Fibre Channel address (FCID), or device World Wide Name (WWN).

•WWN entries define zone membership by the World Wide Name of the attached device. With this membership method, you can move WWN member devices to different switch ports in different zones without having to edit the member entry as you would with a domain ID/port number member. Furthermore, unlike FCID members, WWN zone members are not affected by changes in the fabric that could change the Fibre Channel address of an attached device.

•Domain ID/Port number entries define zone membership by switch domain ID and port number. All devices attached to the specified port become members of the zone. The specified port must be an F_Port or an FL_Port.

McDATA® 4Gb SAN Switch for HP p-Class BladeSystem user guide 37