H3C S6520-EI Series Installation Manual

Contents

25Step Description3. Connect the grounding cableand power cords. See "Grounding the switch" and "Connecting the power cord."4. Power on the switches. N/A5. Configure basic IRF settings. See H3C S6520-EI Switch Series IRF Configuration Guide.6. Connect the physical IRF ports.See "Planning IRF topology and connections."All switches except the master switch automatically reboot, and theIRF fabric is established.Planning IRF fabric setupThis section describes issues that an IRF fabric setup plan must cover.Planning IRF fabric size and the installation siteChoose switch models and identify the number of required IRF member switches, depending on theuser density and upstream bandwidth requirements. The switching capacity of an IRF fabric equalsthe total switching capacities of all member switches.Plan the installation site depending on your network solution as follows:• Place all IRF member switches in one rack for centralized high-density access.• Distribute the IRF member switches in different racks to implement the top-of-rack (ToR) accesssolution for a data center.As your business grows, you can plug H3C S6520-EI switches into the IRF fabric to increase theswitching capacity without any topology change or replacement.Identifying the master switch and planning IRF member IDsDetermine which switch you want to use as the master for managing all member switches in the IRFfabric. An IRF fabric has only one master switch. You configure and manage all member switches inthe IRF fabric at the command line interface of the master switch.NOTE:IRF member switches will automatically elect a master. You can affect the election result byassigning a high member priority to the intended master switch. For more information about masterelection, see H3C S6520-EI Switch Series IRF Configuration Guide.Prepare an IRF member ID assignment scheme. An IRF fabric uses member IDs to uniquely identifyand manage 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, theIRF 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 connectionsbetween IRF member switches. Each IRF member switch has two IRF ports: IRF-port 1 and IRF-port2. To use an IRF port, you must bind at least one physical port to it.