Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide, NX-OS 4.0 (OL-16598-01, June 2008)

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Nexus 5000 Series Switch Fabric Manager Software Configuration Guide
OL-16598-01
Chapter 16 Configuring and Managing Zones
Information About Zoning
Zoning Features
Zoning includes the following features:
• A zone consists of multiple zone members.
– Members in a zone can access each other; members in different zones cannot access each other.
– If zoning is not activated, all devices are members of the default zone.
– If zoning is activated, any device that is not in an active zone (a zone that is part of an active
zone set) is a member of the default zone.
– Zones can vary in size.
– Devices can belong to more than one zone.
– A physical fabric can have a maximum of 16,000 members. This includes all VSANs in the
fabric.
• A zone set consists of one or more zones.
– A zone set can be activated or deactivated as a single entity across all switches in the fabric.
– Only one zone set can be activated at any time.
– A zone can be a member of more than one zone set.
– A zone switch can have a maximum of 500 zone sets.
• Zoning can be administered from any switch in the fabric.
– When you activate a zone (from any switch), all switches in the fabric receive the active zone
set. Additionally, full zone sets are distributed to all switches in the fabric, if this feature is
enabled in the source switch.
– If a new switch is added to an existing fabric, zone sets are acquired by the new switch.
• Zone changes can be configured nondisruptively.
– New zones and zone sets can be activated without interrupting traffic on unaffected ports or
devices.
• Zone membership can be specified using the following identifiers:
– Port world wide name (pWWN)—Specifies the pWWN of an N port attached to the switch as a
member of the zone.
– Fabric pWWN—Specifies the WWN of the fabric port (switch port’s WWN). This membership
is also referred to as port-based zoning.
– FC ID—Specifies the FC ID of an N port attached to the switch as a member of the zone.
– Interface and switch WWN (sWWN)—Specifies the interface of a switch identified by the
sWWN. This membership is also referred to as interface-based zoning.
– Interface and domain ID—Specifies the interface of a switch identified by the domain ID.
– Domain ID and port number—Specifies the domain ID of a Cisco switch domain and
additionally specifies a port belonging to a non-Cisco switch.
Note For N ports attached to the switch over a virtual Fibre Channel interface, you can specify zone
membership using the pWWN of the N port, the FC ID of the N port, or the fabric pWWN of the
virtual Fibre Channel interface.