Managing Zone Allocation Strategies

Zone allocation strategies define how logical networks distribute their resources across availability zones. They can be configured on both logical network profiles (as templates) and directly on logical networks (for per-network overrides).

What are zones?

In MetalSoft, a zone represents an availability boundary within a fabric — typically corresponding to a rack, a group of switches or a failure domain. Zones ensure that network resources (such as VLAN/VNI allocations) are distributed across these boundaries according to a defined strategy.

Zone allocation strategies work alongside the existing VLAN, VNI and IPv4/IPv6 allocation strategies on logical networks and profiles. While those strategies control what resources are allocated, zone strategies control where they are allocated.

Allocation strategy kinds

Kind	Description
auto	The system automatically assigns zones based on available resources and placement rules. You only need to specify the scope.
manual	You explicitly specify the zone name to use. This gives full control over which zone receives the resource.

Each strategy is also associated with a scope that limits where it applies:

Scope	Description
`global`	Applies across all fabrics and sites
`site_group`	Applies to a group of sites
`site`	Applies to a single site
`fabric_group`	Applies to a group of fabrics
`fabric`	Applies to a single fabric
`rack`	Applies to a single rack
`device_group`	Applies to a group of network devices
`network_device`	Applies to a single network device

Zone allocation on logical network profiles

Zone allocation strategies on a logical network profile serve as a template. When a logical network is created from the profile, it inherits the zone strategies.

Creating a zone allocation strategy on a profile

# Automatic zone allocation
curl -X POST "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-network-profiles/{id}/zone/zone-allocation-strategies" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "kind": "auto",
    "scope": {
      "kind": "fabric",
      "resourceId": 1
    }
  }'

# Manual zone allocation
curl -X POST "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-network-profiles/{id}/zone/zone-allocation-strategies" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "kind": "manual",
    "zoneName": "zone-a",
    "scope": {
      "kind": "fabric",
      "resourceId": 1
    }
  }'

Listing zone allocation strategies on a profile

curl "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-network-profiles/{id}/zone/zone-allocation-strategies"

Getting a specific strategy

curl "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-network-profiles/{id}/zone/zone-allocation-strategies/{allocationStrategyId}"

Replacing a strategy

Use PUT to replace an existing strategy entirely:

curl -X PUT "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-network-profiles/{id}/zone/zone-allocation-strategies/{allocationStrategyId}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "kind": "manual",
    "zoneName": "zone-b",
    "scope": {
      "kind": "fabric",
      "resourceId": 1
    }
  }'

Deleting a strategy

curl -X DELETE "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-network-profiles/{id}/zone/zone-allocation-strategies/{allocationStrategyId}"

Zone allocation on logical networks

Logical networks have their own zone allocation strategies under their config. These can be inherited from the profile or set independently.

The API endpoints follow the same pattern but are nested under the logical network’s config:

Creating a zone allocation strategy on a logical network

curl -X POST "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-networks/{id}/config/zone/zone-allocation-strategies" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "kind": "auto",
    "scope": {
      "kind": "fabric",
      "resourceId": 1
    }
  }'

Listing, getting, replacing and deleting

# List all
curl "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-networks/{id}/config/zone/zone-allocation-strategies"

# Get one
curl "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-networks/{id}/config/zone/zone-allocation-strategies/{allocationStrategyId}"

# Replace
curl -X PUT "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-networks/{id}/config/zone/zone-allocation-strategies/{allocationStrategyId}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "kind": "manual",
    "zoneName": "zone-c",
    "scope": {
      "kind": "rack",
      "resourceId": 5
    }
  }'

# Delete
curl -X DELETE "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-networks/{id}/config/zone/zone-allocation-strategies/{allocationStrategyId}"

Zone allocations

Once zone strategies are defined and a logical network is deployed, the system creates zone allocations — the actual zone assignments. These are visible on the logical network’s zone property:

curl "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-networks/{id}"

The zone.zones array contains the allocated zones, each with:

Field	Description
`id`	Unique ID of the zone allocation
`scope`	The scope this allocation applies to
`status`	Allocation status: `allocated`, `pending_allocation` or `deleting`
`zoneName`	The name of the allocated zone

The zone.zoneAllocationStrategies array shows the strategies that produced these allocations.

Specifying zones at logical network creation

Zone allocation strategies can also be set inline when creating a logical network:

curl -X POST "https://<your-server>/api/v2/logical-networks" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "label": "my-network",
    "name": "My Network",
    "networkProfileId": 1,
    "zone": {
      "zoneAllocationStrategies": [
        {
          "kind": "auto",
          "scope": {
            "kind": "fabric",
            "resourceId": 1
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }'

This is equivalent to creating the logical network and then adding the strategy separately.

Managing Network Profiles — configuring VLAN, VNI and IP allocation strategies on profiles
Creating a Logical Network — creating logical networks from profiles
Managing Route Domains — L3 allocation strategies (VRF, L3 VLAN, L3 VNI) which follow a similar pattern