Technical data

13-16 Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide
Publication Number: 53-0000518-09
Creating and Maintaining Zones
13
Merging Zones
Before linking two switches together, it is important that you know the zone database limit of adjacent
switches. For example, when switches running FOS v3.2, v4.4.0, or v5.x discover that the zone merge
database is larger than its pre-determined zone database size limit, they issue a reject notification before
symmetrically segmenting their own ends of the ISL, thereby preventing the new switch from joining
the fabric.
Symmetrical segmentation occurs when both ends of an ISL are shut down. Subsequently, no frames are
exchanged between those two switches.
Asymmetrical segmentation not only prevents frames from being exchanged between switches, but also
causes routing inconsistencies.
The best way to avoid either type of segmentation is to know the zone database size limit of adjacent
switches. The following tables provide the expected behavior based on different database sizes after a
zone merge is specified.
Table 13-4 Resulting Database Size: 0 to 96K
Receiver
Initiator
FOS
v2.6
FOS
v3.1
FOS
v3.2
FOS v4.0/
v4.1/v4.2
FOS v4.3/
v4.4.0
FOS
v5.0.0/
v5.0.1
Fibre
Channel
Router
XPath v7.3
FOS v2.6/v3.1 Join Join Join Join Join Join Join Join
FOS v3.2 Join Join Join Join Join Join Join Join
FOS v4.0/v4.1/
v4.2
Join Join Join Join Join Join Join Join
FOS v4.3/
v4.4.0
Join Join Join Join Join Join Join Join
FOS v5.0.0/
v5.0.1
Join Join Join Join Join Join Join Join
Fibre Channel
Router
Join Join Join Join Join Join Join Join
XPath v7.3 Join Join Join Join Join Join Join Join