5920 & 5900 Switch Series IRF Configuration Guide
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Prepare an IRF member ID assignment scheme. An IRF fabric uses member IDs to uniquely identify and
manage its members, and you must assign each IRF member switch a unique member ID.
Planning IRF topology and connections
You can create an IRF fabric in daisy chain topology, or more reliably, ring topology. In ring topology,
the failure of one IRF link does not cause the IRF fabric to split as in daisy chain topology. Rather, the IRF
fabric changes to a daisy chain topology without interrupting network services.
You connect the IRF member switches through IRF ports, the logical interfaces for the connections
between IRF member switches. Each IRF member switch has two IRF ports: IRF-port 1 and IRF-port 2. To
use an IRF port, you must bind at least one physical port to it.
When connecting two neighboring IRF member switches, you must connect the physical ports of IRF-port
1 on one switch to the physical ports of IRF-port 2 on the other switch.
The HP 5900AF-48XG-4QSFP+, 5900AF-48XG-4QSFP+ TAA, and 5900AF-48G-4XG-2QSFP+
switches can provide 10-GE and 40-GE IRF connections through SFP+ ports and QSFP+ ports,
respectively. You can bind several SFP+ or QSFP+ ports to an IRF port for increased bandwidth and
availability.
The HP 5900AF-48XGT-4QSFP+ switch can provide 10-GE and 40-GE IRF connections through
1/10-GE Ethernet ports or QSFP+ ports. You can bind several 1/10-GE Ethernet ports or QSFP+ ports
to an IRF port for increased bandwidth and availability.
The HP 5920AF-24XG, and 5920AF-24XG TAA switches can provide 10-GE IRF connections through
SFP+ ports. You can bind several SFP+ ports to an IRF port for increased bandwidth and availability.
NOTE:
• Figure 45 an
d Figure 46 show the topologies of an IRF fabric made up of three HP
5900AF-48XG-4QSFP+ switches that use SFP+ ports for IRF connections.
• The IRF port connections in the two fi