Hardware-Enforced Zoning - HP A7533A - Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch Base Administrator's Manual

Hardware-enforced zoning

Hardware-enforced zoning means that each frame is checked by hardware (the ASIC) before it is delivered
to a zone member and is discarded if there is a zone mismatch. When hardware-enforced zoning is
active, the Fabric OS switch monitors the communications and blocks any frames that do not comply with
the effective zone configuration. The switch performs this blocking at the transmit side of the port on which
the destination device is located.
Hardware-enforced zoning is in effect when all of the members of a zone are identified the same way,
either using WWNs or domain,port notation.
If a zone does not have either all WWN or all domain,port entries, software-enforced zoning is in effect.
For overlapping zones (in which zone members appear in two or more zones), hardware-enforced zoning
is in effect as long as the overlapping zones have either all WWN or all domain,port entries.
Hardware-enforced zoning:
• Is also called hard zoning or ASIC-enforced zoning.
• Prevents a host from discovering unauthorized target devices.
• Prevents a host from accessing a device it is not authorized to access.
• Is enforced at the ASIC level. Each ASIC maintains a list of source port IDs that have permission to
access any of the ports on that ASIC.
• Is available on 1, 2, 4, and 10 Gb/s platforms.
• Ensures that the name server does not return any information to an unauthorized initiator in response to
a name server query.
• Is exclusively enforced through selective information presented to end nodes through the fabric Simple
Name Server (SNS). When an initiator queries the name server for accessible devices in the fabric, the
name server returns only those devices that are in the same zone as the initiator. Devices that are not
part of the zone are not returned as accessible devices.
Fabric OS uses hardware-enforced zoning (for each zone) whenever the fabric membership or zone
configuration changes.
The exact zoning methodology varies on different switch models.
models, the hardware zoning methodology for each, and tips for best usage.
238 Administering advanced zoning
Table 59 shows various Fabric OS switch