65Prepare an IRF member ID assignment scheme. An IRF fabric uses member IDs to uniquely identify andmanage its members, and you must assign each IRF member switch a unique member ID.Planning IRF topology and connectionsYou 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 IRFfabric changes to a daisy chain topology without interrupting network services.You connect the IRF member switches through IRF ports, the logical interfaces for the connectionsbetween IRF member switches. Each IRF member switch has two IRF ports: IRF-port 1 and IRF-port 2. AnIRF port is activated when you bind a physical port to it.When connecting IRF member switches, you must connect the physical ports of IRF-port1 on one switchto the physical ports of IRF-port2 on its neighbor switch.The S5820X switches can provide 10-GE IRF connections through SFP+ ports or 1/10Gbase-T Ethernetports, and you can bind several SFP+ ports or 1/10Gbase-T Ethernet ports to an IRF port for increasedbandwidth and availability.NOTE:• Figure 68 and Figure 69 show the topologies for an IRF fabric made up of three S5820X-26S switches.• The IRF port connections in the two figures are for illustration only, and more connection methods areavailable.• For information about the physical ports available for IRF connections on different S5820X switches,see Table 26.Figure 68 IRF fabric in daisy chain topology
