McDATA 4Gb SAN Switch for HP p-Class BladeSystem User Guide (AA-RW20B-TE, December 2005)

52 Managing fabrics
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 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. FC 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 52
• Managing the zoning database, page 54
• Managing the active zone set, page 57
• Managing zones, page 58
• Merging fabrics and zoning, page 60
Zoning concepts
The following zoning concepts provide some context for the zoning tasks described in this section:
• Zones, page 52
• Zone sets, page 52
• Zoning database, page 53
Zones
A zone is a named group of ports or devices that can communicate with each other. Membership in a
zone can be defined by switch domain ID and port number, or device World Wide Name (WWN).
Devices within a zone can only communicate with other devices in the same zone. Zones can overlap; that
is, a device can participate in more than one zone. Zoning divides the fabric for purposes of controlling
discovery. Devices within the same zone automatically discover and communicate freely with all other
members of the same zone. Zones that include members from multiple switches need not include the ports
of the inter-switch links.
• 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 domain ID/port number members, WWN zone members are not affected by
changes in the fabric that could change the FC 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.
Zone sets
A zone set is a named group of zones. Each switch in the fabric maintains its own zoning database
containing the active zone set. This zoning database resides in non-volatile or permanent memory and is
therefore retained after a reset. See ”McDATA Web Server Configured Zonesets data windows” on
page 74 for information about displaying the zoning database. The orphan zone set is created by the
application automatically to hold the zones which are not in the active zone set. The orphan zone set
cannot be removed and is not saved on the switch.
To apply zoning to a fabric, create zone set and activate it. When you activate a zone set, the switch
distributes that zone set and its zones to every switch in the fabric. This zone set is known as the active
zone set. See ”Active Zone Set data window” on page 49 for information about displaying the active zone
set.