Is removing the fcalias and replacing it with Device alias disruptive?

[Abhi Varada]

In our environment, we have been using fcalias'es as the zone members. But I am trying to move to using device aliases. I have defined the device aliases already, but to change an active zone by replacing the fcalias members with the device alias members, is the process disruptive? Also, is renaming an fcalias disruptive? Any assistance is appreciated.

[jihicks]

Hi Abhinav,

An fcalias can contain more than one PWWN.   A device alias is one PWWN only.  So the first thing is to make sure you don't have multiple PWWNs in the fcaliases. 

If you don't make a mistake and they are one to one, then changing them and reactivating the active zoneset should not be disruptive. 

Device alias supports two modes: basic and enhanced mode.

• When you configure the basic mode using device aliases, the application immediately

expands to pWWNs. This behavior continues until the mode is changed to enhanced.

• When device alias runs in the enhanced mode, all applications accept the device-alias configuration

in the native format. The applications store the device alias name in the configuration and distribute

it in the device alias format instead of expanding to pWWN. The applications track the device alias

database changes and take actions to enforce it.

When renaming a device-alias in enhanced mode, any zones which have it as a member will get updated.

You must be in enhanced mode to zone by device-alias in Fabric Manager ( FM )  or Prime Data Center Network Manager ( DCNM ).

No, renaming a fcalias is not disruptive. 

Device-aliases are distributed vis CFS.

FCALIASES  are distriubuted as part of the full zone database.

Best regards,

Jim

[Abhi Varada]

Thanks Jim. That definitely makes sense. Yes, it is one to one.

I didn't fully understand the enhanced mode vs basic mode features, though I have the enhanced mode enabled for both zoning and device-alias. I thought the only difference between the modes is the database is locked as soon as a user starts working on it.

Thanks again for the info.

[dynamoxxx]

Jim,

i am using device alias in basic mode and use DCNM to create my zones.

@dynamoxxx