Lun Masking and LUN Zoning

Whenever we think of Storage few stuffs come into our mind such as LUN, Masking, Zoning, FC, iSCSI, FCoE, SAN, NAS and few more things. On this specific post let us focus on Masking and Zoning of LUN.

LUN Zoning and LUN Masking are important for securing the storage network and reduce the traffic, also this both are used restrict access to storage.

LUN Zoning

When we want to restrict access of Host specific Storage device than we want to setup zoning. So if we want only specific host to access a storage device this zoning comes into picture and this configuration is performed on FC Switch.

By using vLAN technique we can do the segmentation of iSCSI, NFS and FCoE.

Zoning techniques: Hard Zoning and Soft Zoning.

Hard Zoning	Soft Zoning
It is also known PORT ZONING	It is also known as WWN ZONING
FC address of Physical Switch to which Host is connected are used for Zoning	FC address of Nodes WWN/WWPN are used for Zoning
It hide one device from communicating with another device	It prevent one port to route the traffic to another port
Less secure compare to Soft Zoning	More Secure
Simple HBA replacement	HBA replacement is complex - Change in Zoning configuration is required for adding new HBA WWN in zone table
Switch allows traffic between authorized nodes – more secure	It is susceptible that WWN can be spoofed to access device in another zone – Less secure
It is configured at Fibre Channel Switch level	It is configured at Storage controller level, most at Storage controller level.
Zoning configuration need be update when updating fabric configuration (cabling change)	SAN re-cabling can be done with updating Zone configuration
Zoning configuration needs to be modified when cable is moved to different port.	Zoning configuration needs to be modified when a device is moved to different port.

LUN Masking

Let start with an example:

There is a tower of twelve floors on each floor there are 4 flats and you are owner of flat no# 703. So you are authorized to have an authentic access to that particular flat to which you are owner. Although there are other flats on that floor but you are only authorized to the flat to which you are owner – Simple J

Yes the same logic apply to LUN Masking – It authentic specific LUN to be accessed by a particular Host. In simple words not to reveal the LUN to a Host that have not been assigned to it no matter how Host access the same Storage.

Hope this was informative for you J

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With regards,

Sayed