Smartzoning feature

[duplo75]

Hello,

I would like to enable SmartZoning feature on a Cisco MDS fabric that currently has already its own classic zoning configuration on VSAN X..

My concern are about whats happen to the pre-existing zones of VSAN X once the feature is enabled....

• Is it a disruptive action until the pre-existing zones will be converted to the new smartzoning standard? or there would be no impact as desired?
• and if  no disruption would occur then Do I need necessarily to convert the pre-existing zones to let all works without problem? or Can I exclude pre-existing zones for smartzoning configuration?

Thank you

[Walter Dey]

Why do you intend to enable smart zoning; how many zones do you have ?

Do to the fact, that TCAM modifications are necessary, I would think that this is disruptive, although very short time !

[duplo75]

All current zones are created using 1 initiator and 1 target, and now we have to zone several esx hosts to the storage... With SmartZoning enabled would be much easier to create one single zone for each Farm...

We would like to avoid create several 1:1 zones also for the ESXi hosts but don't want to have disruption for current zones that are working in production.. 

[Walter Dey]

Usually, storage vendors recommend single Initiator - single target zoning !

Anyway: there are a few caveats, that you should be Aware of, eg. there are Cisco storage devices that don't support it.

Smart Zoning requires all Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches in the fabric to use Cisco

MDS 9000 NX-OS Software Release 5.2(6) or later and have the Smart Zoning feature

enabled. Smart Zoning cannot be enabled if the fabric contains third-party switches or

switches running earlier versions of Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS or SAN-OS. After Smart

Zoning is enabled, you cannot add a switch to the fabric that is incapable of supporting

Smart Zoning. Smart Zoning is available in both basic and enhanced zoning modes.

Smart Zoning is enabled on a per-VSAN basis. After it has been enabled for a VSAN,

it can be disabled for individual zones, so if you need to have storage devices talk to

each other for replication or backup purposes, for instance, you can simply put those

devices in a zone or a VSAN that does not have Smart Zoning enabled.

[duplo75]

Thank you,

yes, I read the specific explanation about smartzoning enablement but the phrase "After it has been enabled for a VSAN, it can be disabled for individual zones" let me think that "After" is already too late to put some remediation activities on pre-existing zones, so it is clear to me that I can disabled this feature for individual zones within the same VSAN "SmartzoneEnabled" but it's not really clear for me if the short time after enabling the feature on the whole VSAN and subsequently the disabling some specific zones from the feature, this last zones are impacted with I/O disruption for a short time or not.

[Walter Dey]

I am fairly sure it means a short disruption (TCAM reprogramming).

Quite clear: do this only in a service window ! and/or open a preventive TAC case !