McDATA Sphereon 4300 Specifications download pdf (Page 229)

Physical Planning Considerations

5-25

Physical Planning Considerations

Zoning

Directors and fabric switches support a user configuration that

partitions attached devices into restricted-access groups called zones.

Devices in the same zone can recognize and communicate with each

other through switched port-to-port connections. Devices in separate

zones cannot recognize name server or route table information and

therefore cannot communicate with each other. Figure 5-7 illustrates

an Intrepid 6064 Director with three zones (four devices per zone).

Figure 5-7 Director Zoning

Zoning is enabled and enforced by one of the following processes:

• Software-enforced zoning - For earlier versions of director or

fabric switch firmware (prior to E/OSc Version 6.0), device

configuration at a fabric element enforces zoning by limiting

access to name server information in response to a device query.

Only devices in the same zone as the requesting device are

returned in the query response. This type of zoning is also called

name server zoning or soft zoning.

• Hardware-enforced zoning - For later versions of director or

fabric switch firmware (E/OSc Version 6.0 and later), device

configuration at a fabric element enforces zoning by

programming route tables that strictly prevent Fibre Channel

traffic between devices that are not in the same zone. This type of

zoning is also called hard zoning.

Intrepid 6064

Director

ZONE 1

ZONE 3

ZONE 2

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McDATA Sphereon 4300 Specifications Page 229