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30-4
Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide
OL-17256-03, Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 4.x
Chapter 30 Configuring and Managing Zones
About Zoning
• Each VSAN has a full database and an active database.
• Active zone sets cannot be changed, without activating a full zone database.
• Active zone sets are preserved across switch reboots.
• Changes to the full database must be explicitly saved.
• Zone reactivation (a zone set is active and you activate another zone set) does not disrupt existing
traffic.
If required, you can additionally configure the following zone features:
• Propagate full zone sets to all switches on a per VSAN basis.
• Change the default policy for unzoned members.
• Interoperate with other vendors by configuring a VSAN in the interop mode. You can also configure
one VSAN in the interop mode and another VSAN in the basic mode in the same switch without
disrupting each other.
• Bring E ports out of isolation.
Zone Member Configuration Guidelines
All members of a zone can communicate with each other. For a zone with N members, N*(N-1) access
permissions need to be enabled. The best practice is to avoid configuring large number of targets and or
or large numbers of initiators in a single zone. Such configuration wastes switch resources by
provisioning and managing many communicating pairs (initiator-to-initiator or target-to-target) which
will never actually communicate with each other. For this reason, single initiator with a single target is
the most efficient approach to zoning.
The following guidelines must be considered when creating zone members:
• Configuring only one initiator and one target for a zone provides most efficient use of the switch
resources.
• Configuring the same initiator to multiple targets is accepted.
• Configuring multiple initiators to multiple targets is not recommended.
Active and Full Zone Set Considerations
Before configuring a zone set, consider the following guidelines:
• Each VSAN can have multiple zone sets but only one zone set can be active at any given time.
• When you create a zone set, that zone set becomes a part of the full zone set.
• When you activate a zone set, a copy of the zone set from the full zone set is used to enforce zoning,
and is called the active zone set. An active zone set cannot be modified. A zone that is part of an
active zone set is called an active zone.
• The administrator can modify the full zone set even if a zone set with the same name is active.
However, the modification will be enforced only upon reactivation.
• When the activation is done, the active zone set is automatically stored in persistent configuration.
This enables the switch to preserve the active zone set information across switch resets.
• All other switches in the fabric receive the active zone set so they can enforce zoning in their
respective switches.
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