36
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 reliable ring topology. In ring topology, the
failure of one IRF link does not cause the IRF fabric to split as in daisy chain topology. Instead, 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 HPE 5510 HI switches can provide 10-GE IRF connections through SFP+ ports and 40-GE IRF
connections through QSFP+ ports, and you can bind several SFP+/QSFP+ ports to an IRF port for
increased bandwidth and availability.
Figure 38 and Figure 39 show the topologies of an IRF fabric made up of three HPE 5510 24G 4SFP+
HI switches. The IRF port connections in the two figures are for illustration only, and more connection
methods are available.
Figure 38 IRF fabric in daisy chain topology
1
2
3
IRF-port1
IRF-port2
IRF-port1
IRF-port2
1 2 3