If you have no zone configuration, this discovery process will depend on the
default behaviour of the fabric;
If it is set to deny – it will not see any device
If it is set to allow – it will see every device
If the fabric does have a zone configuration it will look at who you have been
put in a zone with. It will look at that zone information and will respond with
the addresses of any devices that you have been zoned with but no devices
that are not in that zone.
The device will now send a PLOGI to each of the addresses that it discovered
during the directory request and it will learn the exact parameters of how it will
need to communicate with each device. The recommended configuration for
setting up zoning is to use Single Initiator Zoning. We Zone the Initiator Ports
to the target resources that it is allowed to use. Initiators are not zoned to
other initiators as they typically do not need to talk to each other. The
exception to this is if you are doing memory based clusters (which very few
people do) or if you have some form of IP infrastructure which is really an any
to any type network. For Storage Networking a SCSI Initiator normally only
talks to specific target devices.