Dell PowerVault 56F (16P Fibre Channel Switch) - Manual (Page 13)

support.dell.com Introduction 1-3
A fabric provides fast, reliable, and seamless information access within the SAN.
Within that fabric, each zone can include selected storage devices and servers. When
the zone is defined, only the devices in the defined zone can access information in
that zone.
You can configure zones dynamically, and the number of zones and zone membership
are effectively unlimited. Zones vary in size and shape, depending on the number of
fabric-connected devices and device locations. Devices may be members of more
than one zone. You can also create temporary zones, such as an enterprise backup
zone.
The following actions create and maintain zones:
Zone creation — You create and manipulate the zones, zone configurations, and
zone aliases.
Zone enforcement — The fabric automatically and transparently restricts access
to only the devices that are defined as zone members.
Zone management — You use zone commands to create, delete, and display
zones, to add or remove zone members, and to configure zone sets.
You can administer zones throughout the fabric from any switch in the fabric. A single
failure will not interrupt zoning enforcement to other SAN connections. The zoning
service automatically increases as the size of the fabric increases. You do not need to
upgrade systems when switches are added and connectivity increases.
The Fibre Channel American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards do not
include zoning. However, zoning allows original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and
integrators to build additional value into their offerings.
Registered state change notifications (RSCNs) and broadcast frames are restricted to
zones. RSCNs are delivered only to devices in the affected zones.
NOTE: For broadcast frames, you can use a special zone called “broadcast” to restrict
the delivery of broadcast frames.