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 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 HPE FlexNetwork 5130 EI switches can provide 10-GE IRF connections through 1/10 GE Ethernet ports or SFP+ ports, and you can bind several 1/10 GE Ethernet ports or SFP+ ports to an IRF port for increased bandwidth and availability.

Figure 28 and Figure 29 show the topologies of an IRF fabric containing three HPE 5130 24G 4SFP+ EI switches. The IRF port connections in the two figures are for illustration only, and more connection methods are available.