HP Direct-Connect External SAS Storage for HP BladeSystem Solutions Depoyment Guide

5 Zoning information
HP Virtual SAS Manager (VSM) is the software application used to configure the switch, and create
and manage hardware-based zone groups. These zone groups allocate resources for device load
balancing purposes and for selectively allowing access to data. For planning purposes, zone
groups and assignments can be pre-configured, even if servers or drives are not yet installed in
BladeSystem c-Class enclosure device bays or storage enclosure drive bays.
NOTE: While zoning is created and managed through the VSM, the storage is configured,
formatted, and partitioned using software utilities such as the HP Array Configuration Utility (ACU),
HP Storage Management Utility (SMU), and Microsoft Disk Manager.
Types of zone groups
There are two types of zone groups:
• Drive bay zone groups—Group together drive bays from one or more MDS600 storage
enclosures or MDS600 storage enclosure drawers. Server device bays assigned this type of
zone group have exclusive access to the drive bays included in the zone group as if the drives
are directly connected to those servers. This type of zone group is for zoned SAS storage
enclosures. The MDS600 is an examples of zoned SAS storage.
• Switch port zone groups—Group together one or more SAS ports on the switch. Server device
bays assigned this type of zone group have access to the MSA2000 sa controller enclosures
or tape devices connected to the ports included in the zone. Tape environments and shared
storage environments such as those using the MSA2000sa use switch port zoning. All tape
drives in a tape device will be accessible to any server that has access to the zone group. All
LUNs in the controller enclosure will be accessible to the assigned servers, unless controlled
through the storage management utility for the controller enclosure.
Key zoning configuration steps
Key zoning configuration steps include:
1. Enabling/disabling Multi-initiator mode.
2. Creating zone groups.
3. Assigning zone groups to servers.
IMPORTANT: When assigning zone groups to servers, certain restrictions are imposed.
Assigned zone groups must reside on external storage enclosures that are connected to switch
ports that map to that server bay. For more information, see “Zoning requirements and device
mappings” (page 51).
4. Capturing the configuration for safekeeping. HP strongly recommends this step, especially in
single-domain configurations.
For more information about zoning, see the HP 3G Virtual SAS Manager User Guide, available
on the HP 3Gb SAS BL Switch page of the HP Manuals website http://www.hp.com/support/
manuals.
50 Zoning information