7/3/2016 Zoning in Cisco SAN switch for beginners ­ SAN Enthusiast

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Zoning in Cisco SAN switch for

beginners

Three years ago I wrote “Zoning in Brocade FC SAN switch for

beginners”. Many people found it useful and some even emailed me
saying it was very helpful. Their kindness inspired me to post more
content to this blog and I am very thankful to each and every one of my
blog readers. Brocade and Cisco FC networking devices are found in
almost all data centers. It would be a bias to not cover the zoning steps
in Cisco So here is zoning steps in Cisco 샬弆ber channel switches and
directors,

Zoning in Cisco devices is pretty straightforward. A zone contains multiple zone

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members. Zone members are device pWWN (pWWN of the N-Port attached to
the switch), fabric pWWN (Switch port pWWN – Port based zoning) etc. This
tutorial is based on the attached device pWWN. As this is more common and
have advantages when compared with other types of zone membership. Once a
zone is added with members, it is added to a zone set. A zoneset is a collection
of zones. Consider reading Zoning in Brocade FC SAN switch for beginners to
understand the basics and the need for zoning.

Zones are contained in a VSAN.

Best practice is to con朥gure a zone with single initiator and single target. This
is to avoid unnecessary use of switch resources. Although zones are contained in
a VSAN, only one zoneset can be active at any given time. When you activate a
zoneset the con朥guration information is sent to all other switches in the fabric
and it the new zoneset is enforced on all switches. For easy understanding here
is a picture of zones which contains single initiator and target,

single initiator and target zones. © MDS 9000 Fabric con샬弆guration guide

As you can see, a fabric means collection of switches (inter connected together)
or a single switch. S1, S2, S3 are storage devices and H1, H2, H3 are hosts. The
next image illustrates how zones and zonesets are represented in a fabric,

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zones and zonesets © MDS 9000 Fabric con샬弆guration guide

Here is a summary of what we discussed,

pWWN of devices attached to switch port is called zone member and it is

added to a zone.
One or more zones are then added to a zoneset.
Finally, only one zoneset is activated and the change propagates fabric wide.

Before proceeding further identify and make a note of the pWWN’s of N-Ports
that are going to be zoned together.

Zoning CLI commands

Since zones are contained in a VSAN, Any zone creation must happen on the
concerned VSAN. First, we need to enter into the con朥guration mode and then
into VSAN.

Step 1: Enter con朥guration mode

switch# config t

Step 2: Creating zone (testzone) on VSAN 100

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switch(config)# zone name testzone vsan 100

Step 3: Adding members to the newly created zone

switch(config-zone)# member pwwn 10:00:ff:05:1e:4b:d5:30

and repeat the same to add another member (target)

switch(config-zone)# member pwwn 50:01:10:80:00:ad:33:e8

Step 4: Add the newly create zone to test_zoneset.

switch(config-zone)# zoneset name test_zoneset vsan 100

The above command selects the zoneset test_zoneset

switch(config-zoneset)# member testzone

Now we have added the newly created zone to zoneset in fabric. Next step is to
active the zoneset.

Step 5: Activating the zoneset is an online process and the ports/devices which
is being con朥gured/re-con朥gured are only a䌀Ѩected.

switch(config-zoneset)# zoneset activate name test_zoneset vsan 100

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Final Step: Once the zoneset is activated the running con朥guration must be
copied to the startup con朥guration. This is done to prevent the switch from
losing the con朥guration information. The following command copies the
running con朥guration to the startup con朥guration on all switches in fabric.

switch# copy running-config startup-config fabric

And we are done, congratulations! The switch should be able to let the
host and storage talk to each other. Hope you 샬弆nd this useful. Got
question? post it in the comments section.

Also published on Medium.

Related:

defzone feature in Brocade and its Cisco counterpart

Default zone mode in Brocade and Cisco is similar to Ethernet switch where you can simply connect
devices to the switch to get going. But as you know in SAN you need to con朥gure zones to let the
devices to talk to each other. But if default zone feature is…

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Access Gateway mode in Brocade explained for beginners

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How to implement core edge fabric using Cisco and Brocade SAN switches? (interopmode)

Update : Starting from FOS 7.1 Brocade does not support IM1, IM2, IM3 (IM - interop mode). But if
you want to connect Cisco and Brocade switches the only option is to use Access Gateway (Brocade)

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7/3/2016 Zoning in Cisco SAN switch for beginners ­ SAN Enthusiast

and NPV (Cisco) feature. Following article is for reference only. Core edge fabric…

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Author: Azhagarasu A
Follow me on Twitter : https://twitter.com/Azhagarasu View all posts by Azhagarasu A

Azhagarasu A / March 27, 2016 / Cisco, SAN / Activating zoneset, copy running-config
startup-config fabric, HBA, how to do zoning, how to do zoning in cisco switch, MDS 9000 zoning,
MDS9000 zoning, single initiator and target zones, switch zoning, VSAN, what is a wwn, what is a
wwpn, what is a zoneset, what is VSAN, what is zoning, wwn zoning, wwpn zoning, zone name,
zoneset, zoning, zoning in cisco

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