Cisco MDS zoning with Dell EMC Storage.

[Mahmoud Marie]

I appreciate your help with the best practices for zoning on Cisco MDS.

We have EMC storage with 4 ports for each Cisco MDS switch. So it's better to create a single zone (Server HBA + all 4 storage pWWNs), or should we create four separate zones, each linking the Server HBA with a specific storage port?"

Thanks

[marce1000]

  - You may find this informational : https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-id/000300103/connectrix-b-series-cisco-best-practices-for-zoning-on-cisco-mds-switches

   M.

[twigs]

Marie,

You have two options,

• Use SmartZoning adding 4 EMC pWWNs as target and the servers HBA as initiator (this is automatic recognized by switch)
• Use the "standard" rules of zonning, mapping each pWWN with each HBA

In the first case you have only one zone with all members, the switch automatically create the paths between storage and servers, you can see 8 paths to the storage array.

In the second scenario, you have 4 zones for each server HBA, also you can see the total of 8 paths to the storage array but with several zones.

SmartZone has one consideration, it is a Cisco feature and if in the future you need to add to the fabric another SAN supplier switch you cannot use interoperability because it is not compatible.