ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Fibre Channel zoning

Imagine you have a big toy room filled with lots of different toys. You have toy cars, dolls, blocks, puzzles, and more. Now imagine that you have a lot of friends who also like to play in your toy room, but each friend has their own favorite toy that they like to play with.

Fiber Channel zoning is like dividing your toy room into different areas or zones, and assigning specific toys to each zone. This way, when your friends come over, they can only play with the toys that are in their assigned zone. For example, if your friend likes playing with toy cars, they can only play with the toy cars in the car zone, and they can't go into the puzzle zone to play with the puzzles.

In real life, Fiber Channel zoning is used in computer networks to divide the network into different zones, and assign specific devices to each zone. This way, different devices can communicate with each other in their assigned zone, but they can't communicate with devices in other zones. This helps to improve security and prevent data from being accessed by unauthorized users.