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Zoning restrictions for Cisco FC and FCoE switches

Contributors netapp-aherbin
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When using Cisco FC and FCoE switches, a single fabric zone must not contain more than one target LIF for the same physical port. If multiple LIFs on the same port are in the same zone, then the LIF ports might fail to recover from a connection loss.

Regular FC switches are used for the FC-NVMe protocol in the exact same way they are used for the FC protocol.

  • Multiple LIFs for the FC and FCoE protocols, can share physical ports on a node as long as they are in different zones.

  • FC-NVMe and FCoE cannot share the same physical port.

  • FC and FC-NVMe can share the same 32 Gb physical port.

  • Cisco FC and FCoE switches require each LIF on a given port to be in a separate zone from the other LIFs on that port.

  • A single zone can have both FC and FCoE LIFs. A zone can contain a LIF from every target port in the cluster, but be careful to not exceed the host's path limits and verify the SLM configuration.

  • LIFs on different physical ports can be in the same zone.

  • Cisco switches require that LIFs be separated.

    Though not required, separating LIFs is recommended for all switches