Loop Devices And Broadcast Zones; Backward Compatibility With Pre-5.3.0 Switches; Broadcast Zones And Default Zoning; Zone Aliases - HP A7533A - Brocade 4Gb SAN Switch Base Administrator's Manual

Loop devices and broadcast zones

Delivery of broadcast packets to individual devices in a loop is not controlled by the switch. Consequently,
adding loop devices to a broadcast zone does not have any effect. If a loop device is part of a broadcast
zone, 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, 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, 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.
To flag devices that are part of a broadcast zone and are connected to a pre-5.3.0 switch. HP
recommends that you validate the zone whenever zone configurations are changed or any devices are
moved in a fabric. See

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. A 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, 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 "Default zoning

Zone aliases

A zone alias is a logical group of ports or WWNs. You can simplify the process of creating zones by first
specifying aliases, which eliminates the need for long lists of individual zone member names.
If you are creating a new alias using aliCreate w,1,1, and a user in another Telnet session executes
cfgEnable (or cfgDisable, or cfgSave), the other user's transaction will abort your transaction and
you will receive an error message. Creating a new alias while there is a zone merge taking place might
also abort your transaction. For more details about zone merging and zone merge conflicts, see
switch or fabric
Virtual Fabric considerations: Alias definitions should not include logical port numbers. Zoning is not
enforced on logical ports.

Creating an alias

1. Connect to the switch and log in as admin.
2. Enter the aliCreate command, using the following syntax:
alicreate "aliasname", "member[; member...]"
244 Administering advanced zoning
"Validating a zone" on page 249 for complete instructions.
mode" on page 250 for additional information about default zoning.
additions" on page 260.
"New