Dell PowerConnect Brocade 300 Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v7.1.0 - Page 306

11 Zoning overview TABLE 53 Approaches to fabric-based zoning (Continued) Zoning approach Description Alternative approaches Application Zoning by application typically requires zoning multiple, perhaps incompatible, operating systems into the same zones. This method of zoning creates the possibility that a minor server in the application suite could disrupt a major server (such as a Web server disrupting a data warehouse server). Zoning by application can also result in a zone with a large number of members, meaning that more notifications, such as registered state change notifications (RSCNs), or errors, go out to a larger group than necessary. Operating system Zoning by operating system has issues similar to zoning by application. In a large site, this type of zone can become very large and complex. When zone changes are made, they typically involve applications rather than a particular server type. If members of different operating system clusters can see storage assigned to another cluster, they might attempt to own the other cluster's storage and compromise the stability of the clusters. Port allocation Avoid zoning by port allocation unless the administration team has very rigidly enforced processes for port and device allocation in the fabric. It does, however, provide some positive features. For instance, when a storage port, server HBA, or tape drive is replaced, the change of WWN for the new device is of no consequence. As long as the new device is connected to the original port, it continues to have the same access rights. The ports on the edge switches can be pre-associated to storage ports, and control of the fan-in ratio (the ratio of the input port to output port) can be established. With this pre-assigning technique, the administrative team cannot overload any one storage port by associating too many servers with it. Not recommended No fabric zoning Using no fabric zoning is the least desirable zoning option because it allows devices to have unrestricted access on the fabric. Additionally, any device attached to the fabric, intentionally or maliciously, likewise has unrestricted access to the fabric. This form of zoning should be utilized only in a small and tightly controlled environment, such as when host-based zoning or LUN masking is deployed. Zone objects A zone object is any device in a zone, such as: • Physical port number or port index on the switch • Node World Wide Name (N-WWN) • Port World Wide Name (P-WWN) Zone objects identified by port number or index number are specified as a pair of decimal numbers in the form D,I, where D is the domain ID of the switch and I is the index number on that switch in relation to the port you want to specify. For example, in Backbones, "4,30" specifies port 14 in slot number 2 (domain ID 4, port index 30). On fixed-port models, "3,13" specifies port 13 in switch domain ID 3. The following issues affect zone membership based on the type of zone object: • When a zone object is the physical port number, then all devices connected to that port are in the zone. • World Wide Names are specified as 8-byte (16-digit) hexadecimal numbers, separated by colons (:) for example, 10:00:00:90:69:00:00:8a. • When a zone object is the node WWN name, only the specified device is in the zone. • When a zone object is the port WWN name, only the single port is in the zone. 306 Fabric OS Administrator's Guide 53-1002745-02