Owner manual

Configuring the zoning database

Use the Zoning Config dialog box (Figure 19) to change the Merge Auto Save, Default Zone, and Discard

Inactive configuration parameters. To open the Zoning Config dialog box, open the Zoning menu and

select Edit Zoning Config. After making the changes, click OK to put the new values into effect.

Figure 19 Zoning Config dialog box

Merge Auto Save

The Merge Auto Save parameter determines whether changes to the active zone set that a switch receives

from other switches in the fabric are saved to the zoning database on that switch. Changes are saved

when an updated zone set is activated. Zoning changes are always saved to temporary memory.

• If Merge Auto Save is enabled, the switch firmware saves changes to the active zone set in temporary

memory and to the zoning database.

• If Merge Auto Save is disabled, changes to the active zone set are stored only in temporary memory,

which is cleared when the switch is reset.

NOTE: Disabling the Merge Auto Save parameter can be useful to prevent the propagation of zoning

information when experimenting with different zoning schemes. However, leaving the Merge Auto Save

parameter disabled can disrupt device configurations should a switch have to be reset. For this reason, the

Merge Auto Save parameter should be enabled in a production environment.

Default Zone

The Default Zone parameter enables (Allow) or disables (Deny) communication among ports/devices that

are not defined in the active zone set or when there is no active zone set. This parameter must have the

same value throughout the fabric. However, the Default Zone parameter is not automatically distributed

throughout the fabric and must be configured to the same state in every switch in the fabric.

Discard Inactive

The Discard Inactive parameter automatically removes inactive zones and zone sets when a zone set is

activated or deactivated from a remote switch.

Managing zone sets

Zoning a fabric involves creating a zone set, creating zones as zone set members, then adding devices as

zone members. The zoning database supports multiple zone sets to serve the different security and access

needs of your storage area network, but only one zone set can be active at one time.

NOTE: Changes that you make to the zoning database are limited to the managed switch and do not

propagate to the rest of the fabric. To distribute changes to configured zone sets fabric wide, you must edit

the zoning databases on the individual switches.