Planning; Devices; Device Access - HP AK241A - StorageWorks 8Gb Simple SAN Connection Installation And Reference Manual

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Planning

Consider the following when planning a fabric:
• Devices, page 19
• Device access, page 19
• Performance, page 20
• Feature licenses, page 21
• Multiple switch
• Switch services, page 24
• Security, page 26
• Fabric management, page 28

Devices

When planning a fabric, consider the following:
• The number of devices and the anticipated demand. This will determine the number of ports that are
needed and in turn the number of switches.
• The transmission speeds of your HBAs and SFPs. The switch supports 2-Gb/s, 4-Gb/s and 8-Gb/s
transmission speeds.
IMPORTANT:
port.
• The distribution of targets and initiators. An F_Port supports a single device. An FL_Port can support up
to 126 devices in an arbitrated loop.

Device access

Consider device access needs within the fabric. Access is controlled by the use of zoning. Some zoning
strategies include the following:
• Separating devices by operating system
• Separating devices that have no need to communicate with other devices in the fabric or have
classified data
• Separating devices into department, administrative, or other functional group
Zoning divides the fabric for purposes of controlling discovery and inbound traffic. A zone is a named
group of ports or devices. Members of the same zone can communicate with each other and transmit
outside the zone, but cannot receive inbound traffic from outside the zone. Zoning is hardware-enforced
only when a port/device is a member of no more than eight zones whose combined membership does not
exceed 64. If this condition is not satisfied, that port behaves as a soft zone member. You can assign
ports/devices to a zone individually or as a group by creating an alias.
A zone can be a component of more than one zone set. Several zone sets can be defined for a fabric, but
only one zone set can be active at one time. The active zone set determines the current fabric zoning.
fabrics, page 21
Setting a Fibre Channel port that has an 8-Gb/s SFP transceiver to 1-Gb/s will down the
8/20q Fibre Channel Switch Installation and Reference Guide 19