Brocade Fabric OS Administrators Guide (Supporting Fabric OS v7.3.0) - Manual (Page 305)

The dotted box represents the consolidated broadcast zone, which contains all of the devices that can
receive broadcast packets. The actual delivery of broadcast packets is also controlled by the Admin
Domain and zone enforcement logic. The consolidated broadcast zone is not an actual zone, but is just
an abstraction used for explaining the behavior.
• The broadcast zone for AD1 includes member devices "1,1", "3,1" and "5,1"; however, "3,1" and "5,1"
are not members of AD1. Consequently, from the AD1 broadcast zone, only "1,1" is added to the
consolidated broadcast zone.
• The broadcast zone for AD2 includes member devices "2,1", "3,1", and "4,1". Even though "2,1" is a
member of AD1, it is not a member of AD2 and so is not added to the consolidated broadcast zone.
• Device "3,1" is added to the consolidated broadcast zone because of its membership in the AD2
broadcast zone.
When a switch receives a broadcast packet, it forwards the packet only to those devices that are zoned
with the sender and are also part of the consolidated broadcast zone.
You can check whether a broadcast zone has any invalid members that cannot be enforced in the
current AD context. Refer to
Validating a zone on page 316 for complete instructions.
Broadcast zones and FC-FC routing
If you create broadcast zones in a metaSAN consisting of multiple fabrics connected through an FC
router, the broadcast zone must include the IP device that exists in the edge or backbone fabric as well
as the proxy device in the remote fabric. Refer to
Using FC-FC Routing to Connect Fabrics on page
533 for information about proxy devices and the FC router.
High availability considerations with broadcast zones
If a switch has broadcast zone-capable firmware on the active CP (Fabric OS v5.3.x or later) and
broadcast zone-incapable firmware on the standby CP (Fabric OS version earlier than v5.3.0), then you
cannot create a broadcast zone because the zoning behavior would not be the same across an HA
failover. If the switch failed over, then the broadcast zone would lose its special significance and would
be treated as a regular zone.
Loop devices and broadcast zones
Delivery of broadcast packets to individual devices in a loop is not controlled by the switch.
Consequently, adding loop devices to a broadcast zone does not have any effect. If a loop device is
part of a broadcast zone, then all devices in that loop receive broadcast packets.
Best practice: All devices in a single loop should have uniform broadcast capability. If all the devices in
the loop can handle broadcast frames, then add the FL_Port to the broadcast zone.
Broadcast zones and default zoning mode
The default zoning mode defines the device accessibility behavior if zoning is not implemented or if
there is no effective zone configuration. The default zoning mode has two options:
• All Access--All devices within the fabric can communicate with all other devices.
• No Access--Devices in the fabric cannot access any other device in the fabric.
If a broadcast zone is active, even if it is the only zone in the effective configuration, the default zone
setting is not in effect.
Broadcast zones and FC-FC routing
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