Zone Implementation; Active And Full Zone Sets - Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Configuration Manual

Information About Zoning

Zone Implementation

Cisco SAN switches automatically support the following basic zone features (no additional configuration is
required):
• Zones are contained in a VSAN.
• Hard zoning cannot be disabled.
• Name server queries are soft-zoned.
• Only active zone sets are distributed.
• Unzoned devices cannot access each other.
• A zone or zone set with the same name can exist in each VSAN.
• Each VSAN has a full database and an active database.
• Active zone sets cannot be changed, without activating a full zone database.
• Active zone sets are preserved across switch reboots.
• Changes to the full database must be explicitly saved.
• Zone reactivation (a zone set is active and you activate another zone set) does not disrupt existing traffic.
If required, you can additionally configure the following zone features:
• Propagate full zone sets to all switches per VSAN.
• Change the default policy for unzoned members.
• Interoperate with other vendors by configuring a VSAN in the interop mode. You can also configure
one VSAN in the interop mode and another VSAN in the basic mode in the same switch without disrupting
each other.
• Bring E ports out of isolation.

Active and Full Zone Sets

Before configuring a zone set, consider the following guidelines:
• Each VSAN can have multiple zone sets but only one zone set can be active at any given time.
• When you create a zone set, that zone set becomes a part of the full zone set.
• When you activate a zone set, a copy of the zone set from the full zone set is used to enforce zoning,
and is called the active zone set. An active zone set cannot be modified. A zone that is part of an active
zone set is called an active zone.
• The administrator can modify the full zone set even if a zone set with the same name is active. However,
the modification will be enforced only upon reactivation.
• When the activation is done, the active zone set is automatically stored in persistent configuration. This
enables the switch to preserve the active zone set information across switch resets.
• All other switches in the fabric receive the active zone set so they can enforce zoning in their respective
switches.
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series NX-OS SAN Switching Configuration Guide, Release 5.2(1)N1(1)
134
Configuring and Managing Zones
OL-27583-01