Brocade Web Tools Administrator's Guide - Supporting Fabric OS v5.3.0 (53-1000435-01, June 2007)

Web Tools Administrator’s Guide 95

Publication Number: 53-1000435-01

Chapter

Administering Zoning

This chapter briefly describes zoning and provides the procedures for managing zoning using

Brocade Web Tools. It contains the following sections:

In this chapter

• Introducing zoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

• Configuring zoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

• Managing zoning with Web Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

• Managing zone aliases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

• Managing zones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

• Managing zone configurations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

• Managing the zoning database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

• Best practices for zoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Introducing zoning

Zoning enables you to partition a storage area network (SAN) into logical groups of devices that can

access each other. For example, you can partition a SAN into two zones, winzone and unixzone, so

that the Windows servers and storage do not interact with UNIX servers and storage.

Zones can be configured dynamically. They can vary in size, depending on the number of

fabric-connected devices, and devices can belong to more than one zone. Because zone members

can access only other members of the same zone, a device not included in a zone is not available

to members of that zone.

When using a mixed fabric—that is, a fabric containing two or more switches running different

fabric operating systems—you should use the switch with the highest Fabric OS level to perform

zoning tasks. See “Best practices for zoning” on page 119 for more recommendations about

zoning.

When zone or Fabric Assist (FA) zone members are specified by fabric location only (domain, area),

or by device name only (node name or port WWN), zone boundaries are enforced at the hardware

level and the zone is referred to as a “hard zone.”

When zone members are specified by fabric location (domain, area) and other members of the

same zone are specified by device name (node name or port WWN), zone enforcement depends on

Name Server lookups, and the zone is referred to as a “soft zone.”

For more specific information about zoning concepts, see the Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide.