35
Step Description
1.
Plan IRF fabric setup.
Plan the installation site and IRF fabric setup parameters. Complete the
following tasks:
•
Planning IRF fabric setup
•
Identifying the master switch and planning IRF member IDs
•
Planning IRF topology and connections
•
Identifying physical IRF ports on the member switches
•
Planning the cabling scheme
2.
Install IRF member
switches.
See "
Setting up an IRF fabric
."
3.
Connect ground wires
and power cords.
See "
Grounding the switch
" and "
Connecting the power cord
."
4.
Power on the switches. N/A.
5.
Configure basic IRF
settings.
See
HP 5830 Switch Series IRF Configuration Guide
.
6.
Connect the physical
IRF ports.
Connect the physical IRF ports on the switches. Use SFP+ transceiver modules
and fibers to connect 10-Gigabit SFP+ ports over a long distance, or use
SFP+ cables to connect 10-Gigabit SFP+ ports over a short distance.
All switches except the master switch automatically reboot, and the IRF fabric
is established.
Planning IRF fabric setup
To plan for IRF fabric size and the installation site, choose the switch models and identify the number
of required IRF member switches, depending on the user density and upstream bandwidth
requirements. The switching capacity of an IRF fabric equals the total switching capacities of all
member switches.
As your business grows, you can plug a switch into an IRF fabric to increase the switching capacity
without any topology change or replacement.
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 ToR access solution for a
data center.
Identifying the master switch and planning IRF member IDs
Determine which switch you want to use as the master for managing all member switches in the IRF
fabric. An IRF fabric has only one master switch. You configure and manage all member switches in
the 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 by assigning a
high member priority to the intended master switch. For more information about master election, see
HP
5830 Switch Series IRF Configuration Guide
.