A-55 was never used as a stand-alone switch right ? So nobody created any zones on it while it was disconnected from the core switch ?

No one created the zones on it, but when i run the command ''show zoneset'' it shows the zones.. we push the zoning from the core directors, and here all the storage edge and host edge are ISLed to the cores..

we disconnected the switch 2 months ago, in these 2 months there have been so many zones pushed up from the cores, now bringing this one this weekend. so what ever the zones we see on the switch A-55 will be before we disconnect right? so what are the steps to be followed?

if "sh zoneset" is identical on both switches i would not worry about, there is nothing you need to do. It would be different if you used A-55 as a standalone switch and now wanted to merge zoneset, then you would need to make sure there were no identical zones with different zone members ..etc

do you know if full zone set distribution is enabled on the VSAN(s)

sh zone status vsan

please see the difference in the zone outputs between A-55 and C-10 (core)

output from Switch A-55

show zone status vsan 740                    

VSAN: 740 default-zone: deny distribute: full Interop: default

    mode: enhanced merge-control: allow                        

    session: none                                               

    hard-zoning: enabled broadcast: enabled                    

Default zone:                                                  

    qos: none broadcast: disabled ronly: disabled              

Full Zoning Database :                                          

    DB size: 86364 bytes                                       

    Zonesets:1  Zones:855 Aliases: 0 Attribute-groups: 1       

Active Zoning Database :                                       

    DB size: 51708 bytes                                        

    Name: Production_A1_VSAN740  Zonesets:1  Zones:840    

Status:                 

output from the core switch C-10

show zone status vsan 740                   

VSAN: 740 default-zone: deny distribute: full Interop: default

     mode: enhanced merge-control: allow                       

     session: none                                             

     hard-zoning: enabled broadcast: enabled                   

Default zone:                                                 

     qos: none broadcast: disabled ronly: disabled             

Full Zoning Database :                                        

     DB size: 93016 bytes                                      

     Zonesets:1  Zones:919 Aliases: 0 Attribute-groups: 1      

Active Zoning Database :                                      

     DB size: 56616 bytes                                      

     Name: Production_A1_VSAN740  Zonesets:1  Zones:923   

Status: Commit completed at 21:11:24 CST Dec  7 2011       

i see, there could be zones on A-55 that were deleted from C-10 long time ago and you don't want to bring those back. So if nothing is using A-55 right now, you can clear zoneset database for vsan 740

clear zone database vsan 740

then save configuration

copy run start

and then reload the A-55 so it boots from the new config that does not have any zones defined in VSAN 740. As soon as you connect A-55 to C10,  all Zones from C-10 will propagate to A-55 because you have full zone distribution enabled.

reload to actually reboot A-55 so it boots from the new config (start-up config) that does not have any zones in VSAN 740.

Thanks for the notes,

you said ''reload''? what are you referring here?