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Zoning Best Practice?
Just wondering how other folks are doing their zoning.
Is it better to use a single initiator/single target or single initiator/multiple target when creating a zone?
Example:
ESXi host has HBA1 and HBA2
Two Brocade 6520 FC switches (two fabrics): SW1 and SW2
EMC VMAX with eight FC ports (1-4 on SW1 and 5-8 on SW2)
Create four zones on SW1: one for each initiator/target pair
Create four zones on SW2: one for each initiator/target pair.
Total of eight zones.
Or
Create one zone on SW1: one initiator and four targets
Create one zone on SW2: one initiator and four targets
Total of two zones
For 30 hosts, that's 240 zones versus 60 zones.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
RRR
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November 27th, 2015 01:00
within 5 years already? Hmmmmm. I would start looking for a decent replacement director, like the Brocade 12k (LOL)
dynamox
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November 27th, 2015 16:00
Brocade 12k , that's like cutting edge for this customer, they prefer older and proven technology heheh.
Allen Ward
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November 30th, 2015 06:00
Maybe you could talk them into deploying some of the original Brocade DCX chassis. Those are still supported. Just redeployed one of ours recently and it still gets the job done :-)
RRR
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December 3rd, 2015 04:00
But of course: it's a Brocade!
ZaphodB
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December 3rd, 2015 07:00
I feel your interop pain; I switched over a couple of years ago, but it was a lot of trouble with no instantaneous payback.
As for aliases, They don't go on ports, they get associated with target/initiator WWNs. So rather than trusting that a device hasn't been moved from its original port, you can see...in a readable fashion...just what is plugged into each active port.
As for aliases in peer zones I am clear that they are not supported; it says so right in the admin guide. I am looking to Brocade to see if I can get clarification on whether that is some sort of 'version 1.0' limitation that will be addressed down the road, or if there is a sound technical reason why the two won't mix. If I get anything more than a shrug out of them I'll post back.
Ed Schulte
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January 11th, 2016 07:00
Hi Zaphod,
As already mentioned before, you can open a Service request and put it against my name, for a Request for Enhancement.
Otherwise no RFE will be opened, and it will take a while to be implemented.
Regards,
Ed
ZaphodB
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January 11th, 2016 07:00
Ed,
Thanks for the offer.
After I figured out that I hadn't missed something obvious, and that it really wasn't supported, I started looking at Brocade support.
While I do not have anything firm or published, someone there told me that it is being worked on, and should/may be available in a ~1 year time-frame. I can not guess whether that will be as an update to the current version, or in a subsequent release, but I find the rumor credible.
Beyond the handful of peer zones that I created during my initial exploration I am going to wait on converting to Peer Zoning on a wholesale basis until this gets sorted out. I am far to used to dealing with aliases to let go of them. I wish it was sooner than a year, but I can do no more than wish Brocade well, and God Speed.