Cisco mds 9706 (zone crashes from active zoneset)

ciscomanxxx · ‎08-09-2017

Hi Experts,

I need an advice why zones (Last changes made on DR site switches) are at DR site switches if i activate zoneset at primary site SAN switches?

I've checked but couldn't found any issue which could give me information about root cause.

Question : do i need to do zoning on principal switch or can i zone server on local SAN switch ?

Please advice , any suggestion would be highly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ak

Walter Dey · ‎08-14-2017

Hi

Not quite clear what your problem is. Most likely you use basic zoning; if 2 people do zoning changes on 2 different switches (think about DR sites, which are quite a distance apart) and then activate the zoneset, they overwrite each others changes. Therefore there is a feature called enhanced zoning, see e.g. https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/mds9000/sw/5_0/configuration/guides/fabric/nxos/cli_fabric/zone.html#73387, which avoids this situation, by locking the db, once the first admin starts doing changes.

Table 3-3 Advantages of Enhanced Zoning
Basic Zoning	Enhanced Zoning	Enhanced Zoning Advantages
Administrators can make simultaneous configuration changes. Upon activation, one administrator can overwrite another administrator’s changes.	Performs all configurations within a single configuration session. When you begin a session, the switch locks the entire fabric to implement the change.	One configuration session for the entire fabric to ensure consistency within the fabric.
If a zone is part of multiple zone sets, you create an instance of this zone in each zone set.	References to the zone are used by the zone sets as required once you define the zone.	Reduced payload size as the zone is referenced. The size is more pronounced with bigger databases.
The default zone policy is defined per switch. To ensure smooth fabric operation, all switches in the fabric must have the same default zone setting.	Enforces and exchanges the default zone setting throughout the fabric.	Fabric-wide policy enforcement reduces troubleshooting time.
To retrieve the results of the activation on a per switch basis, the managing switch provides a combined status about the activation. It does not identify the failure switch.	Retrieves the activation results and the nature of the problem from each remote switch.	Enhanced error reporting eases the troubleshooting process.
To distribute the zoning database, you must reactivate the same zone set. The reactivation may affect hardware changes for hard zoning on the local switch and on remote switches.	Implements changes to the zoning database and distributes it without reactivation.	Distribution of zone sets without activation avoids hardware changes for hard zoning in the switches.
The MDS-specific zone member types (IPv4 address, IPv6 address, symbolic node name, and other types) may be used by other non-Cisco switches. During a merge, the MDS-specific types can be misunderstood by the non-Cisco switches.	Provides a vendor ID along with a vendor-specific type value to uniquely identify a member type.	Unique vendor type.
The fWWN-based zone membership is only supported in Cisco interop mode.	Supports fWWN-based membership in the standard interop mode (interop mode 1).	The fWWN-based member type is standardized.