zoning

[antonio difruscia]

I have a san setup with 2 core switches and 8
leaf switches. I need to isolate 3 connections
on the san. my question is if a create a small zone with those 3 connections, do I need to create a large zone for everything else ?

thanks
TonyD

[Sheldon Smith]

You don't mention what kind of switches you have, but I am assuming the B-series. For the Brocade (B-series) switches, once you set up ANY zoning, then ALL have to be zoned.
As I recall (although I rarely work with them), the C-series and M-series all need zoning set in the first place.

[antonio difruscia]

They are B-series switches. yep, once you set up one zone you need to zone the rest. for some reason I thought I can just zone out what I didn't want the rest to see and it would work, but after working with it
the active configuration only display the first zone I setup, so once I created the zones everything worked as expected..

TonyD

[Pat Sullivan_2]

As mentioned, once you put any zoning on a B-series switch, any remaining unzoned ports will be isolated and unable to communicate with any other devices.

M-series has a "default zone" turned on by default out of the box, which allows all-all communication. In order to put a zoning config on place, this default zone has to be disabled - which leaves a similar situation to the Brocades

C-series also has a default zone, which is done on a per-VSAN basis. Unlike the other switches, it is allowed to stay in place even if a zoning config is added. In addition, you are allowed to define whether to "allow" or "deny" communication between devices in the default zone ("deny" would make the switch act like the M- and B- class switches)

Pat