Zoning Best Practice for Multiple Arrays - MegaZone or Individual Zones?

[Alzhy]

Our environment is growing. Almost evry year -- we have a new Array. Our SAN Admin has been zoning our servers like the following (for each Fabric):

URANUS_DISK:
EVA1_PORTS, EVA2_PORTS, EVA3_PORTS, XP1_FRONT, XP2_FRONT, XP3_FRONT, XP4_FRONT, URANUS_HBA_1, URANUS_HBA_3, URANUS_HBA_5, URANUS_HBA_7

The Array Ports are aliases of course to the appropriate Front ENd WWIDs.

Would it not be Best Practice to have a Zone for each array? The Storage Arrays do not have a reason to communicate with each other (or even if they did, it should be a separate zone). Probably something like:

URANUS_EVA1_DISK:
EVA1_PORTS, URANUS_HBA_1, URANUS_HBA_3, URANUS_HBA_5, URANUS_HBA_7

URANUS_EVA2_DISK:
EVA2_PORTS, URANUS_HBA_1, URANUS_HBA_3, URANUS_HBA_5, URANUS_HBA_7

URANUS_XP1_DISK_ZONE:
XP1_FRONT, URANUS_HBA_1, URANUS_HBA_3, URANUS_HBA_5, URANUS_HBA_7


... so forth..


TIA.

[Rob Leadbeater · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You can find best practices in the SAN Design Reference Guide here:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00403562/c00403562.pdf

Cheers,

Rob

[gabbar]

this is what i recommend... strategy could differ on requirement

1. Single Intiator zoning - Keep only one HBA Port in one zone, be it any array
2. On each Fabric "zone" in all the EVA Ports(on each fabric) in one zone

following rule 1 and 2 you'll have something like this for EVA

URANUS_EVA1_DISK_HBA_1:
EVA1_PORT_8, EVA1_PORT_C, EVA1_PORT_A, EVA1_PORT_E, URANUS_HBA_1,

3. For XP... I will keep only one XP Port in one zone. If my Max. LUNs per XP port expires, I will use another XP CHIP Port and zone it in with the single HBA Port. Or may be you want additional performance then its a different case

this is how it shld look like for XP

URANUS_XP1_DISK_ZONE:
XP1_FRONT_1A, URANUS_HBA_1

I hope this helps...

[Uwe Zessin]

In some cases you MUST put each initiator (host HBA) into its own zone. In the past I've already used that scheme but put all target ports of a single storage array in the same zone (e.g. for one fabric:
- HOST1_1,EVA1_C1P1,EVA1_C2P1
- HOST2_1,EVA1_C1P1,EVA1_C2P1
- HOST1_1,EVA2_C1P1,EVA2_C2P1
- HOST2_1,EVA2_C1P1,EVA2_C2P1

This isolates initiators from each other and it prevents 'leaks' if you are using Continuous Access. For CA, I create separate array/array replication zones, because somebody might want/need to disable that function for some reason.

There is a customer advisory for the wonderful EVA-4400 which requires an even finer granularity at least for the management server:
- HOST1_1,EVA1_C1P1
- HOST1_1,EVA1_C2P1

[jpmartin]

hi,

do you have the link for customer advisory on EVA4400 finer granularity with zoning rules ?

Thank you

[Bill Ruehl]

to jpmartin:

I think single initiator to single target is the preferreed zoning method for most vendors, I know it is reccomended for HDS and EMC at least.

[jpmartin]

to Bill,

i agree with you, but the following rules of zoning must be applied in a CA configuration :

The zones for a Command View EVA management server must include both the source and destination arrays to enable the creation of DR groups and proper management of the arrays. The management server must also have at least one host port from each controller of the arrays zoned with the Command View EVA management server
HBA. Additional array pairs are zoned in a similar manner for each site. If an additional array is added to either site and it will participate in a DR relationship, then two additional zones should be created for each of the Command View EVA management server HBA ports and the additional arrayâ s host ports.

[Alzhy]

So in some respects - it's really all common sense right?

Inter-EVA communications should only have EVAs zoned within - for CA primarily.

Dito with XP's and EVA - for continous XP or External Storage XP.

Single Iniator Single Target as mandated.

Single Initiator, Multiple Targets as ercommended/suggested.

[gabbar]

I think since high end arrays like XP and DMX give you that option to map the LUN to an FE port of your choice, it would make sense to have single intiator-single target zoning.