CHAPTER 2
Fabric Overview
The Cisco MDS 9000 Family NX-OS command-line interface (CLI) can configure and manage features such
as VSANs, SAN device virtualization, dynamic VSANs, zones, distributed device alias services, Fibre Channel
routing services and protocols, FLOGI, name server, FDMI, RSCN database, SCSI targets, FICON, and other
advanced features.
This chapter describes some of these features and includes the following topics:
• Virtual SANs, on page 3
• Dynamic Port VSAN Membership, on page 4
• SAN Device Virtualization, on page 4
• Zoning, on page 4
• Distributed Device Alias Services, on page 5
• Fibre Channel Routing Services and Protocols, on page 5
• Multiprotocol Support, on page 5
Virtual SANs
Virtual SAN (VSAN) technology partitions a single physical SAN into multiple VSANs. VSAN capabilities
allow Cisco NX-OS software to logically divide a large physical fabric into separate, isolated environments
to improve Fibre Channel SAN scalability, availability, manageability, and network security. For FICON,
VSANs facilitate hardware-based separation of FICON and open systems.
Each VSAN is a logically and functionally separate SAN with its own set of Fibre Channel fabric services.
This partitioning of fabric services greatly reduces network instability by containing fabric reconfigurations
and error conditions within an individual VSAN. The strict traffic segregation provided by VSANs helps
ensure that the control and data traffic of a specified VSAN are confined within the VSAN’s own domain,
increasing SAN security. VSANs help reduce costs by facilitating consolidation of isolated SAN islands into
a common infrastructure without compromising availability.
Users can create administrator roles that are limited in scope to certain VSANs. For example, a network
administrator role can be set up to allow configuration of all platform-specific capabilities, while other roles
can be set up to allow configuration and management only within specific VSANs. This approach improves
the manageability of large SANs and reduces disruptions due to human error by isolating the effect of a user
action to a specific VSAN whose membership can be assigned based on switch ports or the worldwide name
(WWN) of attached devices.
Cisco MDS 9000 Series Fabric Configuration Guide, Release 8.x
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