Technical data

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 13-11
Publication Number: 53-0000518-09
Creating and Managing Zone Aliases
13
Evaluate whether the fabric will also use QuickLoop Fabric Assist (QLFA) or QuickLoop (QL). If
you are running Brocade Fabric OS v4.x, consider the following before creating and setting up
QLFA zones:
- QuickLoop Zoning. QuickLoop/QuickLoop zones cannot run on switches running Brocade
Fabric OS v4.x. However, Brocade Fabric OS v4.x can still manage (create, remove, update)
QuickLoop zones on any non-v4.x switch.
- QuickLoop Fabric Assist. Brocade Fabric OS v4.x cannot have a Fabric Assist host directly
connected to it. However, targets on a Brocade Fabric OS v4.x switch can still be part of a
Fabric Assist zone if a Fabric Assist host is connected to a non-v4.x switch.
• Zone changes
Zone changes in a production fabric can cause a disruption of I/O when an RSCN is generated
because of the zone change and the HBA is unable to process the RSCN fast enough. Although
RSCNs are a normal part of a functioning SAN, the pause in I/O might not be acceptable. For these
reasons, you should perform zone changes only when the resulting behavior is predictable and
acceptable. Changing HBA drivers can rectify the situation.
• Final verification
After changing or enabling a zone configuration, confirm that the nodes and storage can identify
and access one another. Depending on the platform, you might need to reboot one or more nodes in
the fabric with the new changes.
The zone configuration is managed on a fabric basis. Zoning can be implemented and administered
from any switch in the fabric that has an Advanced Zoning license enabled. When a change in the
configuration is saved, enabled, or disabled per the transactional model, it is automatically (by closing
the transaction) distributed to all switches in the fabric, preventing a single point of failure for zone
information
Creating and Managing Zone Aliases
A zone alias is a logical group of ports, WWNs, or AL_PAs. You can simplify the process of creating
zones by first specifying aliases, which eliminates the need for long lists of individual zone
member names.
Be aware that if you are creating a new alias using
aliCreate w, “1,1”, and a user in another telnet session
executes cfgEnable (or cfgDisable, or cfgSave), the other user’s transaction will abort your transaction
and you will receive an error message. Creating a new alias while there is a zone merge taking place
might also abort your transaction. For more details about zone merging and zone merge conflicts, refer
to “Adding a New Switch or Fabric” on page 13-25.
N
ote
Zoning commands make changes that affect the entire fabric. When executing fabric-level configuration
tasks, allow time for the changes to propagate across the fabric before executing any subsequent
commands. For a large fabric, you might want to wait several minutes between commands.