3Com 2928 - Baseline Plus Switch PWR, User Manual

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IRF
IRF Overview
An Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF) stack is a set of network devices. Administrators can group
multiple network devices into a stack and manage them as a whole. Therefore, stack management can
help reduce customer investments and simplify network management.
Introduction to Stack
A stack is a management domain that comprises several network devices connected to one another
through stack ports. In a stack, there is a master device and several slave devices.
An administrator can manage all the devices in a stack through the master device.
Figure 1-1 shows a
network diagram for stack management.
Figure 1-1
Network diagram for stack management
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Master device: In a stack, the master device acts as the configuration interface in stack
management. Management and monitoring of all the devices in the stack are performed through
the master device.
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Slave devices: Managed devices in a stack.
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Stack port: Ports between stack devices.
Establishing a Stack
An administrator can establish a stack as follows:
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Configure a private IP address pool for a stack and create the stack on the network device which is
to be configured as the master device.
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Configure ports between the stack devices as stack ports.
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The master device automatically adds the slave devices into the stack, and allocates a private IP
address and a member ID for each slave device.