I second what John wrote. We have never experienced a device taking out all devices in a zone - because we went with the best practice of one adapter <-> one target per zone from the beginning. For clarity and sanity sake, use aliases for each device host side and target side and a naming convention like: 'host-fcs2' or 'switch2-rmt12' for the aliases, create the zones using the alias names and roll up everything into a 'config' that you enable (load into flash memory on the switch). Thus 6 months down the line when an adapter or device fails and is replaced and you are scratching your head at the schema you drew for yourself on a scrap of A4 ... you just login to the switch(es) and do: admin> alishow # list your device aliases admin> aliadd <aliasname> <new_WWN> # add new WWN admin> aliremove <aliasname> <old_WWN> # remove the old WWN admin> cfgshow # show the new alias in the defined config admin> cfgsave # save the config to internal flash admin> cfgenable # enable the changed config admin> cfgactvshow # sanity check
HTH Ian Smith Oxford University Computing Services England. On Wednesday 07 Feb 2007 1:57 am, John Monahan wrote: > It is best practice to put one initiator and one target in each zone. It > may seem cumbersome but its really not that bad. You'll be happy you did > it if you ever have SAN problems down the road. I have seen one device > take out all other devices within the same zone before, more than once. > Just pick a good naming convention for your zones so you can tell exactly > what is in each zone just from the name. I also prefer to use aliases so > when you replace a HBA or tape drive you just update the alias with the > new PWWN instead of going in and changing 20 different zones. > > > ***Please note new address, phone number, and email below*** > ______________________________ > John Monahan > Consultant > Logicalis > 5500 Wayzata Blvd Suite 315 > Golden Valley, MN 55416 > Office: 763-417-0552 > Cell: 952-221-6938 > Fax: 952-833-0931 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.us.logicalis.com > > > > > "Schneider, John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU> > 02/06/2007 05:05 PM > Please respond to > "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU> > > > To > ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU > cc > > Subject > Tape drive zones for FC drives - best practices > > > > > > > Greetings, > My habit in regards to zoning FC tape drives has always been to > put > one host HBA in a zone with all the tape drives it should see, and to have > a > separate zone for each host HBA. For example, in a situation with 2 host > HBAs and 10 tape drives, I would have two zones, one with one host HBA and > 5 > tape drives, and the other with the other host HBA and 5 tape drives. > Pretty simple. > > But an IBM consultant working here is telling me that the best > practice is to have a separate zone for each HBA/tape drive pair. So in > my > example above, I would have 20 zones instead of two. His claim is that > an > individual tape drive can hang all the other drives if they are in the > same > zone, but not if they are in separate ones. Has anyone seen this in real > life? > > This becomes important to me because I am about to put in new SAN > switches, and he wants me to follow this recommendation. I have 2 TSM > servers with 4 HBAs each, 4 NDMP nodes, and 14 tape drives. Using my > scheme, I would have 12 zones, with his scheme I would have 56 zones. That > seems like a lot of zones, and unnecessarily cumbersome. > > Is it really necessary to isolate each HBA/Tape drive into a > separate zone? Do individual tape drives really hang other drives in > their > zone? > > Best Regards, > > John D. Schneider > Sr. System Administrator - Storage > Sisters of Mercy Health System > 3637 South Geyer Road > St. Louis, MO. 63127 > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Office: 314-364-3150, Cell: 314-486-2359
