Connetrix Manager and zoning

Hi,

We're using the same version of Connectrix Manager and no, I don't think there is a way you can only show zones from the fabric you're working on in the middle window. If the zone is active within the zone set it'll have a green icon instead of a greyed out one. To make it easier to tell what is what, I suggest using a naming convention on your zones that includes the name of the fabric. Not perfect I know but it'll make things easier if you're not already doing it.

yeah, good suggestion with naming convention ... too bad there is no way to filter that middle section to only show the current fabric zones.

Hi dynamox,

I had a play in the zoning screen and checked the user guide, there doesn't appear to be a way to filter as you desired.

I think that when a zone is created you should be able to specify which fabric you want to create it for, so therefore you will only ever see that zone when that fabric is selected in the configure / zoning view.

I have tried to think of scenarios where you would want to be able to use a zone on multiple fabrics, all I could think of is if you were preparing to merge 2 fabrics, but even if one was a brocade/interop they would merge/append their zonesets upon ISL linkup without any manual zone fiddling required. So there aren't really any situations where you would need this.

I will run this by some of the guys here ..

elab response:

The reason for this in 8.9.1 is there is only a single global library. In Connectrix Manager 9.0, users have the ability to create individual zone libraries for each fabric.

Jason,

i am looking at "connetrix manager user guide 9.0" and can't find how to configure individual zone libraries. Is this an online process to create these libraries?

thanks

I just went through the CM 9.0 User Guide and I also found it lacked any direct description of global & individual libraries.

So I upgraded our lab 1U from 8.9.1 to 9.0 so I could see how it worked for myself.

The way it works after an upgrade is that the zoning dialogue looks mostly the same except there is now a "zoning library" dropdown in the top right of the screen which has "global" selected by default with your existing global library, however now also has an individual fabric wwn zoneset library in the dropdown also.

If you select the individual fabric library then it will be empty. You can populate it by going back to global, selecting the zoneset, going "copy to" and select the individual library you want to copy it into. This is an online change, it doesn't touch the switch.

Jason,

do you know if it's possible to load Connetrix manager on a box that is not connected to the SAN. I want to export my current Connetrix configuration and load it on a test box and see how this new feature works ?

Thanks

Yes this should work.

In my CM 9.0 install I have switches defined which aren't currently managed due to no communication. I can still edit the zoning library for these switches.

Remember that you can't have multiple CM Servers managing the same switch at the same time. It doesn't sound like that was your plan though.

Jason,

do you know if Connectrix Manager 9.0 can be downloaded from Powerlink, or do i have to contact my local CE. At this point i just want to load it on a test box and check out the new features.

Thanks

Not 100% sure, you may be able to if you have previously registered a CnxMngr purchase and serial# and have a valid service contract.

ok, i got it up and running on my test box. I followed your instructions and copied a zone set from Global Zoning Library to a WWN of one of my switches. I decided to try this: i created a new zone in Global Zoning Library, then i switched to one of the WWN zone libraries but did not see the new zone I just created. Do you think it's because i don't have a real connection to the fabric? My concern is that if somebody creates a zone under Global Zoning Library, my WWN zoning library will be inconsistent.

Thanks

What you described I would have expected:

If you create a new zone in the global zoning library, it would not automatically copy it into the individual fabric WWN zoning libraries.

You are thinking that it should work out from the zone which WWNs the zone is relevant to and then it would automatically assign it to the appropriate individual fabric?

Worst case scenario would be: new user creates zone in global, adds it into some other incorrect zoneset in global instead of going to the individual library, activates incorrect zoneset which does not include existing zoning.

To minimise this maybe you could delete all zonesets out of global library?

I think they should have a mode called "individual library mode" and it disables the global library to avoid this situation? Is that where you are leading?

Yes, or at least a way to filter the view where one view allows you to see all zones and another view to filter by a particular fabric. The more i play with this feature, i get a little hesitant to use it. I am afraid that one of my teammates can accidentally forget to go to the individual zone library and activate the global one ..and in turn deactivate zones that were not populated in global. It would be nice if zones created in individual zone library would also show up in global.