Dell PowerConnect Brocade 300 Fabric OS Administrator's Guide v7.1.0 - Page 310

11 Broadcast zones Best practices for zoning The following are recommendations for using zoning: • Always zone using the highest Fabric OS-level switch. Switches with earlier Fabric OS versions do not have the capability to view all the functionality that a newer Fabric OS provides, as functionality is backwards compatible but not forwards compatible. • Zone using the core switch versus an edge switch. • Zone using a Backbone rather than a switch. A Backbone has more resources to handle zoning changes and implementations. Broadcast zones Fibre Channel allows sending broadcast frames to all Nx_Ports if the frame is sent to a broadcast well-known address (FFFFFF); however, many target devices and HBAs cannot handle broadcast frames. To control which devices receive broadcast frames, you can create a special zone, called a broadcast zone, that restricts broadcast packets to only those devices that are members of the broadcast zone. If there are no broadcast zones or if a broadcast zone is defined but not enabled, broadcast frames are not forwarded to any F_Ports. If a broadcast zone is enabled, broadcast frames are delivered only to those logged-in Nx_Ports that are members of the broadcast zone and are also in the same zone (regular zone) as the sender of the broadcast packet. Devices that are not members of the broadcast zone can send broadcast packets, even though they cannot receive them. A broadcast zone can have domain,port, WWN, and alias members. Broadcast zones do not function in the same way as other zones. A broadcast zone does not allow access within its members in any way. If you want to allow or restrict access between any devices, you must create regular zones for that purpose. If two devices are not part of a regular zone, they cannot exchange broadcast or unicast packets. To restrict broadcast frames reaching broadcast-incapable devices, create a broadcast zone and populate it with the devices that are capable of handling broadcast packets. Devices that cannot handle broadcast frames must be kept out of the broadcast zone so that they do not receive any broadcast frames. You create a broadcast zone the same way you create any other zone except that a broadcast zone must have the name "broadcast" (case-sensitive). You set up and manage broadcast zones using the standard zoning commands, described in "Zone creation and maintenance" on page 316. Broadcast zones and Admin Domains Each Admin Domain can have only one broadcast zone. However, all of the broadcast zones from all of the Admin Domains are considered as a single consolidated broadcast zone. Broadcast packets are forwarded to all the ports that are part of the broadcast zone for any Admin Domain, have membership in that Admin Domain, and are zoned together (in a regular zone) with the sender of the broadcast frame. 310 Fabric OS Administrator's Guide 53-1002745-02