HP StorageWorks Fabric OS 6.x administrator guide (5697-7344, March 2008)

Fabric OS 6.x administrator guide 145
Admin Domain features
Admin Domains allow you to:
• Define the scope of an Admin Domain to encompass ports and devices within a switch or a fabric.
• Share resources across multiple Admin Domains. For example, you can share array ports and tape
drives between multiple departments. In Figure 2, one of the storage devices is shared between AD1
and AD2.
• Have a separate zone database for each Admin Domain. See ”Admin Domains, zones, and zone
databases” on page 162 for more information.
• Move devices from one Admin Domain to another without traffic disruption, cable reconnects, or
discontinuity in zone enforcement.
• Provide strong fault and event isolation between Admin Domains.
• Have visibility of all physical fabric resources. All switches, E_Ports, and FRUs (including blade
information) are visible.
• Implement Admin Domains in a fabric with some switches running AD-unaware firmware versions (that
is, firmware versions earlier than Fabric OS 5.2.0).
• Continue to run existing third-party management applications. Prior and existing versions of third party
management applications continue to work with admin and user IDs.
NOTE: The Admin Domain administrator can define up to 254 ADs (AD1 – AD254) in the AD database;
however, Fabric OS supports only 16 active Admin Domains running concurrently. More than sixteen active
Admin Domains might cause performance degradation and unpredictable system behavior.
Requirements for Admin Domains
This section lists the requirements for implementing Admin Domains in a fabric.
• One or more switches in the fabric must be running Fabric OS 5.2.0 or later.
• The switches must have a valid Advanced Zoning license.
• The default zone mode setting must be set to No Access before you create Admin Domains (see
”Implementing Admin Domains” on page 153).
• To use Admin Domains and the FC-FC Routing Service in the same fabric, the switches connecting to
the FC router must be running Fabric OS 5.2.0 or later.
• If the fabric includes LSAN zones:
• The LSAN zone names must not end with “_ADn”.
• The LSAN zone names must not be longer than 57 characters.
• The fabric must be in the native operating mode. Admin Domains are not supported in interoperability
mode.
• Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports cannot be members of an Admin Domain.
User-defined Administrative Domains
AD1 through AD254 are user-defined Admin Domains. These user-defined Admin Domains can be created
only by a physical fabric administrator (see ”Admin Domain access levels” on page 147 for more
information).
In Figure 3 on page 144, AD1 and AD2 are user-defined Admin Domains.
System-defined Administrative Domains
When you install Fabric OS 6.0.0, the switch enters AD-capable mode with domains AD0 and AD255
automatically created. AD0 and AD255 are special Admin Domains. AD0 and AD255 always exist and
cannot be deleted or renamed. They are reserved for use in creation and management of Admin Domains.