Brocade Web Tools Administrator's Guide v6.0.0 (53-1000606-01, April 2008)

Web Tools Administrator’s Guide 95
53-1000606-01
Chapter
8
Administering Zoning
This chapter briefly describes zoning and provides the procedures for managing zoning using
Brocade Web Tools.
In this chapter
This chapter contains the following information:
•Introducing zoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
•Configuring zoning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
•Managing zoning with Web Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
•Managing zone aliases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
•Managing zones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
•Managing zone configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
•Managing the zoning database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
•Best practices for zoning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Introducing zoning
Zoning enables you to partition a storage area network (SAN) into logical groups of devices that can
access each other. For example, you can partition a SAN into two zones, winzone and unixzone, so
that the Windows servers and storage do not interact with UNIX servers and storage.
Zones can be configured dynamically. They can vary in size, depending on the number of
fabric-connected devices, and devices can belong to more than one zone. Because zone members
can access only other members of the same zone, a device not included in a zone is not available
to members of that zone.
When using a mixed fabric—that is, a fabric containing two or more switches running different
fabric operating systems—you should use the switch with the highest Fabric OS level to perform
zoning tasks. See “Best practices for zoning” on page 117 for more recommendations about
zoning.
When zone members are specified by fabric location (domain, area) and other members of the
same zone are specified by device name (node name or port WWN), zone enforcement depends on
Name Server lookups, and the zone is referred to as a “soft zone.”
For more specific information about zoning concepts, see the Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide.