H3C Technologies H3C S5560 Series Switches - Manual (Page 52)

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An IRF fabric has only one master switch. You configure and manage all member switches in the IRF
fabric at the CLI of the master switch. IRF member switches automatically elect a master.
You can affect the election result by assigning a high member priority to the intended master switch. For
more information about master election, see H3C S5560-EI Switch Series IRF Configuration Guide.
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 S5560-EI 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 53 and Figure 54 show the topologies of an IRF fabric made up of three S5560-30C-EI switches.
The IRF port connections in the two figures are for illustration only, and more connection methods are
available.
Figure 53 IRF fabric in daisy chain topology