Sun Microsystems StorEdge, Troubleshooting Manual

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Chapter 2 Configurations 21
Zones
Zoning allows the user to divide the switch ports into zones for more efficient and
secure communication among functionally grouped nodes. There are several types
of zones and a port may be defined in any. No port can be in all zone types
simultaneously.
Name Server Zones
Name server zones allow the division of the fabric (one or more Switch chassis) into
as many as 256 fabric-wide zones; each name server zone defines which ports or
devices receive name server information, as defined by the FC-GS3 document.
Overlapping Zones
The new Sun StorEdge SAN 4.0 release now supports WWN-based zones, as well as
port-based zones. Port-based and WWN-based zones can overlap. When creating
overlapping NS zones, one or more switch ports is in at least two zones. When a
port is in multiple zones, one host or storage device attached to a switch port to be a
member of many zones and resources can be shared. If a resource is shared in
multiple zones, it can be made available to multiple zones by using overlapping
zones.
When connecting multiple switches, zones can help manage the complexity of
sharing resources. For example, you can use port zoning to make all the disks of a
Sun StorEdge T3 array belong to the same zone in a SAN. Alternately, you can share
the resources of the array among several NS zones.
Refer to vendor-specific switch documentation to determine the maximum number
of zones you can have in a configuration.
Zone nesting, where zones exist inside other zones, is also possible.