Question

A storage administrator is editing the zoning configuration on a Cisco MDS 9000 fabric that uses enhanced zoning across VSAN 20. A colleague on another switch in the same fabric attempts to make zoning changes at the same time and reports an error that the operation cannot proceed. When the first administrator finishes, they modify a zone and then run 'zoneset activate name PROD-ZS vsan 20'. What behavior of enhanced zoning explains the colleague's error and ensures configuration consistency?

Accepted Answer

Enhanced zoning acquires a fabric-wide lock so only one administrator can modify the zoning database at a time, and changes are distributed and committed atomically to all switches.

Answer

Enhanced zoning uses soft zoning, which prevents two switches from advertising the same FCNS entries simultaneously.

Answer

Basic zoning was still in effect, so the full zoneset had to be manually copied to each switch, blocking the second administrator.

Answer

The colleague's error occurred because enhanced zoning distributes only the active zoneset, requiring the full zoneset to be re-merged on every activation.