Planning Irf Topology And Connections - H3C S5120-SI Installation Manual

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 a minimum of 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 IRF port connections in the following figures are for illustration only, and more connection
methods are available. The following figures use the S5120-28P-SI front panel as an example.
Figure 33 IRF fabric in daisy chain topology
Figure 34 IRF fabric in ring topology
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