Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v7.0.0 (53-1002148-02, June 2011)

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 247
53-1002148-02
Broadcast zones
11
Broadcast packets are forwarded to all the ports that are part of the broadcast zone for any Admin
Domain, have membership in that Admin Domain, and are zoned together (in a regular zone) with
the sender of the broadcast frame.
Figure 35 illustrates how broadcast zones work with Admin Domains. Figure 35 shows a fabric with
five devices and two Admin Domains, AD1 and AD2. Each Admin Domain has two devices and a
broadcast zone.
FIGURE 35 Broadcast zones and Admin Domains
The dotted box represents the consolidated broadcast zone, which contains all of the devices that
can receive broadcast packets. The actual delivery of broadcast packets is also controlled by the
Admin Domain and zone enforcement logic. The consolidated broadcast zone is not an actual zone,
but is just an abstraction used for explaining the behavior.
• The broadcast zone for AD1 includes member devices “1,1”, “3,1” and “5,1”; however, “3,1”
and “5,1” are not members of AD1. Consequently, from the AD1 broadcast zone, only “1,1” is
added to the consolidated broadcast zone.
• The broadcast zone for AD2 includes member devices “2,1”, “3,1”, and “4,1”. Even though
“2,1” is a member of AD1, it is not a member of AD2 and so is not added to the consolidated
broadcast zone.
• Device “3,1” is added to the consolidated broadcast zone because of its membership in the
AD2 broadcast zone.
When a switch receives a broadcast packet it forwards the packet only to those devices which are
zoned with the sender and are also part of the consolidated broadcast zone.
You can check whether a broadcast zone has any invalid members that cannot be enforced in the
current AD context. Refer to “Validating a zone” on page 254 for complete instructions.
broadcast
"1,1; 3,1; 5,1"
"1,1"
"2,1"
broadcast
"2,1; 3,1; 4,1"
"3,1"
"4,1"
"5,1"
broadcast
"1,1; 3,1; 4,1"
"1,1"
"3,1; 4,1"
AD1 AD2