HP AA979A - StorageWorks SAN Switch 2/8V, Administrator'S Manual, Page: 371 / 465

Fabric OS 5.3.0 administrator guide 379
• The broadcast zone for AD2 includes member devices “2,1”, “3,1”, and “4,1”. Even though “2,1” is a
member of AD1, it is not a member of AD2 and so is not added to the consolidated broadcast zone.
• Device “3,1” is added to the consolidated broadcast zone because of its membership in the AD2
broadcast zone.
In the fabric shown in Figure 28 , broadcast packets will be sent to devices “1,1”, “3,1”, and “4,1”.
Broadcast frames can go across Admin Domain boundaries. This means that broadcast packets can be
sent to devices that are not part of the same Admin Domain as that of the sender.
You can run
zone
-
validate
on a broadcast zone to check if it has any invalid members that cannot be
enforced in the current AD context.
Upgrade and downgrade considerations
If you upgrade from a Fabric OS version earlier than v5.3.0 to Fabric OS v5.3.0 or later, you must rename
any existing zones named “broadcast” before you upgrade. The firmware download fails if a pre-v5.3.x
switch has a zone with the name of “broadcast” in the effective configuration.
When downgrading to a firmware version earlier than Fabric OS v5.3.0, you must remove or disable the
broadcast zone. The firmware downgrade fails if a zone with the name of “broadcast” is part of the
effective configuration.
High availability considerations with broadcast zones
If a switch has broadcast zone-capable firmware on the active CP (Fabric OS v5.3.x or later) and
broadcast zone-incapable firmware on the standby CP (Fabric OS version earlier than v5.3.0), then you
cannot create a broadcast zone because the zoning behavior would not be the same across an HA
failover. If the switch failed over, then the broadcast zone would lose its special significance and would be
treated as a regular zone.
Loop devices and broadcast zones
Delivery of broadcast packets to individual devices in a loop is not controlled by the switch. So adding
loop devices to a broadcast zone does not have any effect. If a loop device is part of a broadcast zone,
then all devices in that loop receive broadcast packets.
Best practice: All devices in a single loop should have uniform broadcast capability. If all the devices in
the loop can handle broadcast frames, then add the FL_Port to the broadcast zone.
Backward compatibility with pre-v5.3.0 switches
In a broadcast zone, you should not include any members connected to switches running firmware versions
earlier than Fabric OS v5.3.0. For pre-v5.3.0 switches, the “broadcast” zone name does not have any
special significance and a broadcast zone appears as a regular zone.
If a broadcast zone has any members that are connected to pre-v5.3.0 switches, then those devices are
zoned together.
Broadcast packets are checked only for local devices in the fabric. If a remote switch is running pre-v5.3.0
firmware, the broadcast zone does not have any effect on devices connected to that remote switch.
The
zone -validate
command can flag devices that are part of a broadcast zone and are connected
to a pre-v5.3.0 switch. It is strongly recommended that you run
zone -validate
whenever zone
configurations are changed or any devices are moved in a fabric.
Broadcast zones and default zoning
The default zoning mode defines the device accessibility behavior if zoning is not implemented or if there
is no effective zone configuration. The default zoning mode has two options:
• All Access—All devices within the fabric can communicate with all other devices.
• No Access—Devices in the fabric cannot access any other device in the fabric.
If a broadcast zone is active, even if it is the only zone in the effective configuration, the default zone
setting is not in effect.