Advantage over soft Zoning over hard zoning

[Advantage over soft Zon]

Can any one give me explanation on Zoning?

If I am having two san switch for redundant purpose. And I have configured a zoning on san switch. Pls find the attachment

1. What u call this type of zoning .Is it soft zoning are hard zoning
2. If any one on port get failed .Then again we have to change the allies setting in san switch

[Bernd Reize]

Hard zoning: zoning is enforced by switch in hardware at the asic level for every single frame.
Soft zoning: no hardwarechecking, zoning is done by the switch nameserver (=only at login time, no frame checking).

Hard zoning is highly recommended. If hard zoning is available depends on your switch models. Brocade switches i.e. are able to perform hard zoning with wwn based zoning and port based zoning.

WWN based zoning: zone/alias definition by wwn name. Downside: if a hba fails and has to be replaced you have to change zoning information, too

Port based zoning: zone/alias definition by switch domain id/port number. Downside: you can not simple plug a cable into another port (don't know, why anyone would like to do this anyway ;-)

[Advantage over soft Zon]

Thanks for u r reply.

Can u tell if I want to HBA to another server having same configuration .Is I have to change any changes to the zone configuration?

As per u r advice hard zoning is the best .In hard zoning also we have to create allies and Zones add the port to it. So if one port not function what to do on hard zoning.

[Bernd Reize]

> Can u tell if I want to HBA to another server
> having same configuration .Is I have to
> change any changes to the zone configuration?

yes, if you want to add another server/hba to your san you have to create a new zone containing the hba port and all target storage ports

> So if one port not function what to do on
> hard zoning.

that's a disadvantage with port based zoning, you would have to add the other/new port to the zone. But its very unlikely that a port fails. Normally only the gbic/sfp fails which can be replaced without any changes to zoning.

regards,
bernd

[Uwe Zessin]

> Downside: you can not simple plug a cable into another port (don't know, why anyone would like to do this anyway ;-)

I had to deal with a switch that had a defective quad. The end-node could log in, but it could not see the targets at all times. The WWN-based zoning helped me to plug it onto a different quad and it instantly worked.