SAN Zoning Question

[UselessUser]

Hi,

We have a EVA 4400 and I am now looking at how it has been zoned... The way it is so far, is the following..

Each EVA 4400 controller connected to both Brocade switches, and we then have all servers dual connected one to each switch...

The zoning we have on each switch:

Server HBA -> Each EVA 4400 controller

So if we have 5 servers, we have 5 zones, basically each enabling access only from the server in question to both EVA adapters... firstly is this correct? Or even necessary, as the EVA presents only the disks I choose to the adapters I choose?

Also, within the Alias section if I select the port to which a server is attached I have 3 nested sections.. what do they all mean? For example I have:

Emulex 20:00:00:00:cc:40:ab:90
Emulex 10:00:00:00:cc:40:ab:90
Emulex FC2243 FV2.72A2 etc etc

What are all these and which one should the Alias be created with?

Also they have various icons next to them, some have what appears to be a tower next to two cylinders, whereas ones from my C3000 appear to have computer icons, (Is this NPIV or something?)

Can anyone make sense of any of this?!

[Víctor Cespón · Accepted solution]

The recomendation is to create one zone for each server port and each EVA controller.
This not always needed but with some HBA models, each HBA must be on a zone.

Emulex 20:00:00:00:cc:40:ab:90 - NODE WWN
Emulex 10:00:00:00:cc:40:ab:90 - PORT WWN
Emulex FC2243 FV2.72A2 etc etc - HBA Model and firmware

You must use the PORT WWN when doing zones.

[UselessUser]

Hi,

Why is this NODE WWN created (As in I assume its based on the PORT WWN and therefore if I changed the card it would change??) and where is it viewable on the NODE itself?

I have tried looking in the HBAnywhere tool on a host and it lists the PORT WWN's and paths to destinations but no NODE WWN?

[Víctor Cespón]

Let me try to explain it with one example:

On an HBA with 2 ports, both have the same Node WWN, but different Port WWN.

On an EVA5000, you have 4 host ports. All have the same Node WWN, but the port WWN is different for each port.

[Uwe Zessin]

The idea of a node WWN is to find out which ports belong to the same device. This does not always work reliable :-(, for example if you have multiple adapters in a server - each one has its own WWNN. In some cases you can tell the operating system's device drive to apply the WWNN from the first adapter to all remaining adapters.

In reality one does track all WWPNs anyway so the WWNN is not that important (at least that's how I think about it).

[Del_3]

The only time I can recall the Node WWN being used for configuration is with the HBA import file for HP SAN Visibility.

[UselessUser]

Hi,

Thank you all for your comments. I now understand!