Upgrade And Downgrade Considerations; High Availability Considerations With Broadcast Zones; Loop Devices And Broadcast Zones; Backward Compatibility With Pre-5.3.0 Switches - HP A7533A - Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch Base Administrator's Manual

You can run zone
enforced in the current AD context.

Upgrade and downgrade considerations

If you upgrade from a Fabric OS version earlier than 5.3.0 to Fabric OS 5.3.0 or later, you must rename
any existing zones named "broadcast" before you upgrade. The firmware download fails if a pre-5.3.x
switch has a zone with the name of "broadcast" in the effective configuration.
When downgrading to a firmware version earlier than Fabric OS 5.3.0, you must remove or disable the
broadcast zone. The firmware downgrade fails if a zone with the name of "broadcast" is part of the
effective configuration.

High availability considerations with broadcast zones

If a switch has broadcast zone-capable firmware on the active CP (Fabric OS 5.3.x or later) and broadcast
zone-incapable firmware on the standby CP (Fabric OS version earlier than 5.3.0), then you cannot create
a broadcast zone because the zoning behavior would not be the same across an HA failover. If the switch
failed over, then the broadcast zone would lose its special significance and would be treated as a regular
zone.

Loop devices and broadcast zones

Delivery of broadcast packets to individual devices in a loop is not controlled by the switch. So adding
loop devices to a broadcast zone does not have any effect. If a loop device is part of a broadcast zone,
then all devices in that loop receive broadcast packets.
Best practice: All devices in a single loop should have uniform broadcast capability. If all the devices in the
loop can handle broadcast frames, then add the FL_Port to the broadcast zone.

Backward compatibility with pre-5.3.0 switches

In a broadcast zone, you should not include any members connected to switches running firmware versions
earlier than Fabric OS 5.3.0. For pre-5.3.0 switches, the "broadcast" zone name does not have any
special significance and a broadcast zone appears as a regular zone.
If a broadcast zone has any members that are connected to pre-5.3.0 switches, then those devices are
zoned together.
Broadcast packets are checked only for local devices in the fabric. If a remote switch is running pre-5.3.0
firmware, the broadcast zone does not have any effect on devices connected to that remote switch.
The zone validate command can flag devices that are part of a broadcast zone and are connected
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to a pre-5.3.0 switch. It is strongly recommended that you run zone
configurations are changed or any devices are moved in a fabric.

Broadcast zones and default zoning

The default zoning mode defines the device accessibility behavior if zoning is not implemented or if there
is no effective zone configuration. The default zoning mode has two options:
• All Access—All devices within the fabric can communicate with all other devices.
• No Access—Devices in the fabric cannot access any other device in the fabric.
If a broadcast zone is active, even if it is the only zone in the effective configuration, the default zone
setting is not in effect.
If the effective configuration has only a broadcast zone, then the configuration appears as a No Access
configuration. To change this configuration to All Access, you must put all the available devices in a
regular zone.
See "Activating default
validate on a broadcast zone to check if it has any invalid members that cannot be
-
zones" on page 399 for additional information about default zoning.
validate whenever zone
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Fabric OS 6.x administrator guide 393