Patent ID: 8661501

Claim:
A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage device having a computer readable program stored thereon, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to: load known best practices from a centralized remote repository of known best practices; receive a list of host ports and storage ports in a storage area network; receive a selection of a guidance policy for automatically creating a zone in the storage area network, wherein the guidance policy defines a zoning plan for automatically connecting ports in the storage area network and the guidance policy is selected from the group consisting of one zone per host, one zone per host bus adapter (HBA), one zone per storage cluster, one zone per storage controller type, or consistent-zoning policy; receive a selection of a set of validation policies, wherein the set of validation policies define known best practices for connecting devices in the storage area network based on the guidance policy; generate a proposed zone based on the guidance policy; determine whether the proposed zone violates any of the set of validation policies based on the list of host ports and storage ports and based on the known best practices loaded from the centralized remote repository of known best practices; and responsive to a determination that at least one of the validation policies is violated, prevent automatic creation of the proposed zone in the storage area network using the guidance policy and request a user to change the selection of the set of validation policies or the selection of the guidance policy.