Zoning Information; Types Of Zone Groups; Key Zoning Configuration Steps - HP 634041-006 Deployment Manual

6 Zoning information

HP Virtual SAS Manager (VSM) is the software application used to configure the switch, and create
and manage hardware-based zone groups. These zone groups allocate resources for device load
balancing purposes and for selectively allowing access to data. For planning purposes, zone
groups and assignments can be pre-configured, even if servers or disk drives are not yet installed
in BladeSystem c-Class enclosure device bays or storage enclosure drive bays.
NOTE: While zoning is created and managed through the VSM, the storage is configured,
formatted, and partitioned using software utilities such as the HP Storage System Administrator
(HP SSA), HP Array Configuration Utility (ACU), HP Storage Management Utility (SMU), and
Microsoft Disk Manager.

Types of zone groups

There are two types of zone groups:
Switch port zone groups—Group together one or more ports on the SAS BL Switch. Server
device bays assigned this type of zone group have access to the storage enclosures or tape
devices connected to the ports included in the zone. This type of zone group is for shared
SAS devices. The MSA 2040 SAS, P2000 G3 SAS MSA and HP MSL2024, MSL4048, MSL
8048, and MSL8096 Tape Libraries and 1/8 G2 Tape Autoloader are examples of shared
SAS devices. All LUNs in the controller enclosure are accessible to the assigned servers, unless
controlled through the storage management utility for the controller enclosure and all tape
drives in a tape device are accessible to any server that has access to the zone group.
Drive bay zone groups—Group together drive bays from one or more MDS600 or D6000
drawers or D2600/D2700 disk enclosures. Server device bays assigned this type of zone
group have exclusive access to the drive bays included in the zone group, as if the drives are
directly connected to those servers. This type of zone group is for zoned SAS storage enclosures.
The MDS600, D6000 , and D2600/D2700 enclosures are examples of zoned SAS storage.

Key zoning configuration steps

Key zoning configuration steps include:
1. Enabling/disabling Multi-initiator mode.
2. Creating zone groups.
3. Assigning zone groups to servers.
4. Capturing the configuration for safekeeping. HP strongly recommends this step, especially in
single-domain configurations.
For more information on zoning, see the HP 6G Virtual SAS Manager user guide, available on
the HP 6Gb SAS BL Switch page of the HP Manuals website http://www.hp.com/support/manuals.
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