SDV Requirements and Guidelines

Be aware of the following requirements and guidelines as you plan and configure SDV:

SDV should be enabled on switches where devices that are part of SDV zones are connected.

SDV does not work for devices connected to non-MDS switches.

Broadcast zoning is not supported for a zone with a virtual device.

IVR and SDV cannot be used for the same device. A SDV-virtualized device cannot be part of an IVR zone or zoneset.

Virtual device names should be unique across VSANs because they are registered with the device alias server, which is unaware of VSANs. For example, if you have enabled SDV and have registered a name, vt1 in both VSAN 1 and VSAN 2, then the device alias server cannot store both entries because they have the same name.

You cannot specify the same primary device for different virtual devices.

SDV does not work with soft zoning (Soft zoning means that zoning restrictions are applied only during interaction between the name server and the end device). If an end device somehow knows the FC ID of a device outside its zone, it can access that device; it does not work with the zone default-zone permit vsan operation (which would otherwise permit or deny traffic to members in the default zone).

If devices are not already zoned with the initiators, then you can configure SDV virtual device zones with no negative impact. If they are already zoned, then zoning changes are required.

The real device-virtual device zone cannot coexist with the real device-real device zone. If the real devices are not already zoned together, then you can configure the real device-virtual device zone with no negative impact. If these devices are already zoned, then adding the real device-virtual device zone may cause the zone activation to fail. If this occurs, then you must delete one of the zones before activation.

For example, a user attempts to create a configuration with zone A, which consists of I, the initiator, and T, the target (I,T), and zone B, which consists of a virtual initiator, VI, and real target, T (zone VI, T). Such a configuration would fail. Likewise, an attempt to configure zone C, which consists of an initiator, I, and target T, with zone D, which consists of an initiator, I, and virtual target, VT (zone I, VT), would also fail.

Caution

There must be at least one SDV-enabled switch that is not a Cisco MDS 9124 Switch between the server and the device that are being virtualized. SDV does not work when initiators and primary devices are connected to the same Cisco MDS 9124 Switch.