Brocade Fabric OS Administrator's Guide Supporting Fabric OS v6.3.0 (53-1001336-02, November 2009)

Fabric OS Administrator’s Guide 235
53-1001336-02
Broadcast zones
11
You create a broadcast zone the same way you create any other zone except that a broadcast zone
must have the name “broadcast” (case-sensitive). You can set up and manage broadcast zones
using the standard zoning commands, which are described in “Zone creation and maintenance” on
page 239.
Broadcast zones and Admin Domains
Each Admin Domain can have only one broadcast zone. However, all of the broadcast zones from
all of the Admin Domains are considered as a single consolidated broadcast zone.
Broadcast packets are forwarded to all the ports that are part of the broadcast zone for any Admin
Domain, have membership in that Admin Domain, and are zoned together (in a regular zone) with
the sender of the broadcast frame.
Figure 28 illustrates how broadcast zones work with Admin Domains. Figure 28 shows a fabric with
five devices and two Admin Domains, AD1 and AD2. Each Admin Domain has two devices and a
broadcast zone.
FIGURE 28 Broadcast zones and Admin Domains
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.
broadcast
"1,1; 3,1; 5,1"
"1,1"
"2,1"
broadcast
"2,1; 3,1; 4,1"
"3,1"
"4,1"
"5,1"
broadcast
"1,1; 3,1; 4,1"
"1,1"
"3,1; 4,1"
AD1 AD2