Brocade Advanced Zoning is a key feature for switches, directors, and backbones
that utilize Brocade Fabric OS. Using zoning, organizations can dynamically arrange
fabric-connected devices into logical groups (zones) across the physical topology of
the fabric.
These zones can include selected storage and hosts
within a Brocade fabric restricting information access to only
the "member" devices in the defined zone. Although
zone members can access only other members in their zones, individual
devices can be members of more than one zone. This approach enables
the secure sharing of storage resources, a primary benefit of
storage networks.
Brocade Advanced Zoning can be used for a single physical fabric or a Virtual
Fabric partition of a physical fabric. Zoning within Virtual Fabrics is performed
just like zoning a single physical fabric - the zoning management interfaces and the
secure, hardware enforcement of the device communication are carried over into Virtual Fabrics.
Each Virtual Fabric has a separate zoning database to maximize the separation of the Virtual Fabrics.
Because zoning works normally within Virtual Fabrics, the Brocade Fibre Channel Routing feature,
which leverages zoning, can be used with devices within Virtual Fabrics.
DATA CENTER FABRIC ZONING FEATURES
Brocade Data Center Fabric (DCF) architecture zoning features use the zoning services of Fabric OS to simplify the management of advanced features such as:
- Fibre Channel Routing
- Adaptive Networking Fabric QoS
- Adaptive Networking Traffic Isolation
Highlights
- Increases Storage Area Network (SAN) fabric security through
hardware enforcement
- Optimizes IT resources by grouping them into specific zones
- Simplifies the configuration of Brocade DCF architecture features (QoS, Fibre Channel Routing,
and Traffic Isolation)
- Improves access management of fabrics and devices through automatic fabric-wide distribution of zone updates
- Reduces provisioning time with Brocade Web Tools GUI enhancements that support saved zone configurations
- Maximizes management flexibility to meet the objectives
of different closed user groups
- Includes programmable fields and actions to customize
fabrics in response to user demand and changing user profiles
