Different between A-series IRF and E-series Stacking

[charlesPTS]

Hi all expert,

Appreciate if any experts can help provide a simple explanation for the following:

Different between A-series IRF and E-series Stacking

Am confuse, are they similar or ? :)

Thank all in advance :)

Cheers

Charles

[Fredrik Lönnman]

The E-series (old ProCurve) "stacking" is mainly just management consolidation, you have one IP from where you can access the other switches management CLI.

The A-series IRF stack is a more "true" stack where each stack members looks like a line card in a chassie switch. The A-series IRF stack offeres one single management IP for the whole stack, distributed routing and distributed link aggregation etc.

[charlesPTS]

Hi Fredrik Lönnman,

Thank for the quick and swift reply =) Really appreciate it !

Just a quick one, if i had a A-series switch (e.g. A5120) can i do a normal stacking using my UTP port as i dont have any 10Gbe port available for me to do IRF stack.

Thank =D

Cheers
Charles

[manuel.bitzi]

Hi charles

Yes you can. In A-Series this is called "clustering". It's the same as the stacking with E-Series (ex Procurve) and you can do it over every link.

br

Manuel

[pombeii]

An A5120 SI can do IRF on Gigabit ports, even though an A5120 EI requires 10-Gigabit ports.  

[damima]

Hi,

can somebody draw the line between IRF and new E3800 mesh stacking ? I am looking at 2xA5500 or 2xE3800. However, due high support cost of A series (have no clue why HP is keeping this so high with pricing), I am more for 2xE3800 with stacking module. 

If E3800 stacking is similar to IRF I rather go with it. Any inside info since nothing is avaliable on SmartPortal about this ? 

Best

Damir

[Richard Litchfield]

I think this overview sums up the differences nicely.

3800 with mesh/stacking is in the ProCurve family

5500 with IRF runs Comware

There are lots of variations and combinations in each.

[damima]

So, based on your expeirence, which combination you would get for vmware cluster: 2xA5500 or 2xE3800 with stacking modules? Idea is to have 2xDL385G7 connected to these switches and have HA on VMWARE including switch failure. Access switches will be connected to both switches with 1GbE uplinks. 

Suggestions?

Damir

[C0LDWiR3D]

The E3800 stacking i simlar to IRF (or c3750, EX-4200).

Which means you can connect your switches or servers to both switches with distributed link aggregation (DLAG). Basically you just configured it like any other LAG between the stacked switches (which acts as one switch with the physical swithces as linecards) and you other equipment.

Would you should choose depends on features, and also what other equipment is installed - from a management perspective.

Cheers

[jeew]

please tell me what is the benefit of using IRF over VRRP

[Fredrik Lönnman]

VRRP is first hop redundancy only, IRF is besides that single management for the stack and distributed link aggregation on stack members.