Zone Implementation

All switches in the Cisco MDS 9000 Family automatically support the following basic zone features (no additional configuration is required):

• Zones are contained in a VSAN.
• Hard zoning cannot be disabled.
• Name server queries are soft-zoned.
• Only active zone sets are distributed.
• Unzoned devices cannot access each other.
• A zone or zone set with the same name can exist in each VSAN.
• Each VSAN has a full database and an active database.
• Active zone sets cannot be changed, without activating a full zone database.
• Active zone sets are preserved across switch reboots.
• Changes to the full database must be explicitly saved.
• Zone reactivation (a zone set is active and you activate another zone set) does not disrupt existing traffic.

If required, you can additionally configure the following zone features:

• Propagate full zone sets to all switches on a per VSAN basis.
• Change the default policy for unzoned members.
• Interoperate with other vendors by configuring a VSAN in the interop mode. You can also configure one VSAN in the interop mode and another VSAN in the basic mode in the same switch without disrupting each other.
• Bring E ports out of isolation.

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