What is WWN zoning?

WWN zoning (also called name zoning) restricts access by a device’s WWN. As the WWN is on the host, the port the host is connected to can be moved and access is still preserved. Connecting a new device into a port previously used by a WWN zone device will not convey any access to the previous device’s resources.

What is zoning in SAN switch?

Zoning is a procedure that takes place on the SAN fabric and ensures devices can only communicate with those that they need to. Masking takes place on storage arrays and ensures that only particular World Wide Names [WWNs] can communicate with LUNs on that array.

What are the types of zoning in storage?

There are two types of zones: soft and hard.

  • Soft Zones. Soft zoning means that the switch will place WWNs of devices in a zone, and it doesn’t matter what port they’re connected to.
  • Hard Zones. Hard zones are more like VLANs in the Ethernet world.
  • Zoning Best Practices.

What is Wwpn and Wwnn?

A WWPN is a World Wide Port Name; a unique identifier for each Fibre Channel port presented to a Storage Area Network (SAN). Each port on a Storage Device has a unique and persistent WWPN. A World Wide Node Name, WWNN, or WWnN, is a World Wide Name assigned to a node (an endpoint, a device) in a Fibre Channel fabric.

What is WWN in SAN storage?

A World Wide Name (WWN) or World Wide Identifier (WWID) is a unique identifier used in storage technologies including Fibre Channel, Parallel ATA, Serial ATA, NVM Express, SCSI and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS).

What is the purpose of WWN in FC SAN?

A World Wide Name (WWN) is a unique identifier that is hard-coded into each Fibre Channel (FC) device by the device’s manufacturer. WWNs provide a method for identifying FC devices across the network.

What is the difference between LUN masking and zoning?

LUN masking takes place at either the host bus adapter (HBA) or storage controller, and restricts the hosts’ ability to access specific LUNs. LUN zoning generally takes place on storage-area network (SAN) switches and compartmentalises the SAN fabric, grouping hosts and storage arrays into zones.

What is ISL in SAN switch?

An ISL is a connection between two switches through an Expansion Port (E_Port). When using ISL Trunking to aggregate bandwidth of up to four ports, the speed of the ISLs between switches in a fabric is quadrupled.

What is ZONE IN SAN storage?

Zoning in a SAN is a used to segment traffic between targets and initiators, or less formally workstations and storage. Zoning is generally used for security or performance benefits. Zoning can be set up through software, referred to as Soft Zoning or it can be set up through hardware, referred to as Hard Zoning.

What is LUN masking and zoning?

What WWNN used for?

A WWNN is used to uniquely identify a device in a Storage Area Network (SAN). Each IBM storage device has its own unique WWNN. For DS8000, each Storage Facility Image (SFI) has a unique WWNN. A WWPN is a unique identifier for each Fibre Channel port presented to a Storage Area Network (SAN).

How do WWNN and WWPN differ from the FC addresses?

WWPN is a 64-bit physical address of FC port (interface) and WWNN is a 64-bit physical address of HBA itself.