Comware Based
1748076 Members
5259 Online
108758 Solutions
New Discussion

Which IRF port configuration should I do?

 
SOLVED
Go to solution
Miaad
Occasional Visitor

Which IRF port configuration should I do?

Hi, We have several groups of 2x 5900's and have come across two different ways of implementing IRF.

 

Two interfaces in one IRF port:

irf-port 1/2
 port group interface FortyGigE1/0/51
 port group interface FortyGigE1/0/52
#
irf-port 2/1
 port group interface FortyGigE2/0/51
 port group interface FortyGigE2/0/52

 

One interface per IRF port:

irf-port 1/1
 port group interface FortyGigE1/0/51
#
irf-port 1/2
 port group interface FortyGigE1/0/52
#
irf-port 2/1
 port group interface FortyGigE2/0/52
#
irf-port 2/2
 port group interface FortyGigE2/0/51

Is there a difference in these configurations?  What is recommended configuration?

Thank you.

2 REPLIES 2
TerjeAFK
Respected Contributor

Re: Which IRF port configuration should I do?

We are using the latter config. I assume that in the first config the two interfaces are aggregated, ie. you get 80 gig IRF links.

 

FYI, we also use the following config for our IRF ring:

 

 irf mac-address persistent timer
 irf auto-update enable
 undo irf link-delay
 irf member 1 priority 32
 irf member 2 priority 30
 irf member 3 priority 28
 irf member 4 priority 26
 irf member 5 priority 24
 irf member 6 priority 22

sdide
Respected Contributor
Solution

Re: Which IRF port configuration should I do?

Hi Miaad,

 

yes there is a difference.

 

In your first example you use two physical interfaces in one irf port. That way you can use " IRF link load sharing mode" to get the traffic balanced across the two physical links.

In the second example you use 1 physical port to 1 irf port. I'm not sure how traffic is distributed (if at all) across the 2 IRF ports.  It should somehow take "the optimal path" (look at "Packet Forwarding Mechanism")

 

http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx/c04311478.pdf

 

I haven't been able to find anywhere what this "optimal path" is or how its calculated. There might be some loadbalancing accros IRF port 1 and 2, but I doubt it.

 

Now I don't know the rest of your setup, and can therefore not exactly say what is best for you.

 

Regards

 

 

 

Søren Dideriksen, Network Administrator
Region Midtjylland