Types of Zoning in Cisco MDS 9000 Series Switches
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Cisco MDS (Multilayer Director Switches) provides multiple approaches for zoning to simplify the user experience in storage area networks (SANs). Large fabrics have many end devices that demand for a better approach to manage the resources while zoning in fabrics. Administrators must manage the fabric prioritising for best resource utilization.
Zones consist of one or more devices. In basic zoning, different zone members are grouped into zones, which in turn form zone sets. Manually configure the zones and zone sets for better segregation of traffic. Basic zoning advocates a one-to-one approach for mapping across all the fabrics, be it for single or multiple end devices.
To save time, memory and reduce the administrative burden of configuration, Cisco MDS 9000 series has innovated other zoning methods to cater to all kinds of business needs.
Enhanced Zoning creates a session where only one administrator makes configuration changes, and the session lock is released later. No simultaneous configuration changes can be made to the zoning database ensuring the configuration is same across fabric. Administrator needs to make sure there are no human errors incorporated into the fabric by any kind of user at any point in time, enhanced zoning was specifically designed for this.
Here is the diagram explaining the session lock mechanism:
Session Lock Mechanism Flow Diagram
When the traditional method to configure (pairing of end devices) creates a lot of unwanted zones, use smart zoning. Smart Zoning uses a single zone for all end devices (initiators and targets) even when it is for a large environment. This saves user time and helps in better resource management.
Smart zoning avoids the creation of extra zones that are seen in such scenarios reducing the confusion and saves time.
Standard approaches of zoning for One-to-one and One-to-many Single Initiator zoning.
The Autozone feature is a mechanism to automate zoning of devices and saving time spent on configuration. In a scenario where you must configure new devices all at once and you don’t want to manually configure on each device this feature is a life saver.
This feature can be used to reduce the administrative overhead of manually creating the switch zone configuration each time a device is added to a one-time command. An administrator must configure the Autozone feature after the initial deployment and does not have to manually change or modify the zone configuration each time a new device is added to a fabric.
To explain auto zoning better here is an example that depicts a single-switch fabric, where four initiators and two targets when they are logged on to a Cisco MDS switch. Look at the zoning table to relate all the zone names and the end devices that are a part of that zone set called “AUTOZONESET”.
The Autozone feature is enabled to automate zoning of the devices.
Zoning Feature Growth Comparison
For an efficient resource utilization and reduce the administrative burden of configuration, Cisco MDS 9000 series has innovated various zoning methods to cater to all kinds of business needs. When the right type of zoning is chosen, users can reduce human errors, save time and optimise their resources.