Fibre Switch Zone Configuration

[doggatas]

Hi

I have done some research on the net and a little apprehensive to configure fibre switches with zones for an ESX environment that has been inherited! (as i have not done it before)

I have attached a picture of the current setup!(the way the hardware is cabled) Currently there is no zoning configured on the switches and i am a little concerned it is costing us in performance!

If someone could provide me with some basic zone setups for the current setup or adivise in a recable plus zone for this environment!

Thanks in advance

[mnasir]

Your environment almost identical to my environment (physical cabling), I just have many more esx servers and I just upgraded to DS4800 from my old DS4300. Yes, you are right; you should do the zoning in your fiber switch. Here are my recommendations:

FC Switch 1:

Zone 1: (3650M2_Host1_HBA1 + DS4300_CTRLA_HBA1)

Zone 2: (3650M2_Host1_HBA1 + DS4300_CTRLA_HBA1)

Zone 3: (3650M2_Host2_HBA1 + DS4300_CTRLB_HBA1)

Zone 4: (3650M2_Host2_HBA1 + DS4300_CTRLB_HBA1)

Zone 5: (VCB_HBA + TS3200_Port1 + TS3200_Port2)

FC Switch 2:

Zone 1: (3650M2_Host1_HBA2 + DS4300_CTRLA_HBA2)

Zone 2: (3650M2_Host1_HBA2 + DS4300_CTRLA_HBA2)

Zone 3: (3650M2_Host2_HBA2 + DS4300_CTRLB_HBA2)

Zone 4: (3650M2_Host2_HBA2 + DS4300_CTRLB_HBA2)

Zone5: (3650M2_DEV_HBA1 + DS4300_CTRLA_HBA2)

Zone6: (3650M2_DEV_HBA1 + DS4300_CTRLB_HBA2)

Please award points if you find this post helpful – Thanks.

[AndreTheGiant]

You must create several rules, based on WWN.

Each rules must contain one host HBA + 1 storage target HBA (attacched at the same FC switch).

To reduce the rules you can also compose each rule with: 1 host HBA + 2 storage HBA of the same storage device.

Then the storage masking will be simple: each host (and ALSO the backup server) will see each LUN

For the tape you can create a single rule with backup HBA + 2 tape HBAs.

Andre

[doggatas]

Hi

Thanks for the great reponse, i had a fair assumption that would be the conig.

As a zone newbie, just one more quick question, what is the actual advantage of zoning since the i though it would be zoned and the suggested config, everything can see everything, except the hosts?

Cheers

[AndreTheGiant]

Zoning is useful to remove un-necessary "path".

Cause in a host can talk to a "target" and not to another host your remove this "path".

Ethernet is a "broadcast" network, FC no.

If you remove un-necessary "path" you increase security and probably also the switch performance (reducing the learn activity).

Andre

[mnasir]

This should give you some insight:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_Channel_zoning