When do we need to reference physical WWN's in NPIV world?

[ciscomagic1]

When we create zones, we should use virtual wwn's not physical ones. All wwn's, physical and virtual will go through the same fc port.

Believe that the FC traffic  would still  have to locate and go through physical wwn, then after get to HBA, split to different NPIV's. I believe this is how it works.

However,  Are there any situations when we need to use physical wwn's in daily administrations? It seems to me that all we care is virtual WWN's

Are there any ways on the switch side to list those virtual WWN's and their corresponding physical wwn's?

Thanks in advance for your inputs!

[ciscomagic1]

are you confused by my question?

[Steven.langdale_2 · Accepted solution]

Hello

"Believe that the FC traffic would still have to locate and go through physical wwn, then after get to HBA, split to different NPIV's. I believe this is how it works." - Not quite.  Traffic is delivered to the right place based on the FCID, the WWN is not part of this process.

"However,  Are there any situations when we need to use physical wwn's in daily administrations?"  No

"Are there any ways on the switch side to list those virtual WWN's and their corresponding physical wwn's?" - Not that I know of, unless you count doing a shflogi database int fc?/?? and pick out the real WWN's

Thanks

Steven  

[ciscomagic1]

Thank you!