Planning The Cabling Scheme - HP A5120 EI Series Installation Manual

Table 1 1 shows the physical ports that can be used for IRF connection, and the restrictions on port use.
Table 11 Physical IRF port requirements
Switch chassis
A5120 EI switches
(excluding the A5120-
24G EI and the A5120-
48G EI)
A5120 SI switches

Planning the cabling scheme

Planning the cabling scheme for an A5120 EI IRF fabric
If 2-port interface cards are used and the IRF links are not aggregate, follow these guidelines on
connecting two neighboring A5120 EI switches:
You can connect the interface card in slot 1 (MOD 1) on a member switch to the MOD 1 or MOD 2

card on its neighboring switch.
Connect the left port on one interface card to the right port on the other interface card, as shown in

Figure 43.
Candidate physical
IRF ports
Ports on the expansion
interface cards on the
rear panel
All network ports
41
Requirements

You must order interface cards separately. For
long-distance connections, use XFP or SFP+
transceiver modules and fibers. For short-
distance connections, use CX4 or SFP+ cables.
For more information, see
(A5120 EI switches only)" and
transceiver modules and SFP+/CX4 cables
(A5120 EI switches only)."

Ports assigned to the same IRF port must be on
the same interface card.

All A5120 EI switches in a ring topology and the
non-edge switches in a daisy chain topology
must have at least one two-port interface card or
two one-port interface cards.
HP recommends that you use Gigabit SFP ports and
HP A3600 Switch SFP Stacking Kit cables for IRF
connection.
For more information, see
and SFP Stacking Kit (only for the A5120 SI
switches)."
"Interface cards
"SFP/SFP+/XFP
"SFP transceiver modules