Forum Discussion

Shurik's avatar
Shurik
Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
Jan 20, 2021

4 BIG-IP in one cluster?

Hello guys,

 

We have two data centers, with L2 link between the DCs. Is it possible to create one cluster (2 BIG-IP LTM in primary DC + 2 BIG-IP LTM in standby DC)?

And in case one of the services/links go down in primary location, the VIP for that specific service will be up in standby DC?

Is it a good practice?

 

Thank you.

application delivery
BIG-IP
LTM
  • Daniel_Wolf's avatar
    Daniel_Wolf
    Jan 20, 2021

    It is sort of a good practice, but to shift traffic to a backup data center you would also use F5 DNS.

    You would have two clusters, one in each datacenter. And F5 DNS would distribute traffic across data centers.

    Take a look at this video: BIG-IP DNS Load Balancing Introduction

    Otherwise you would have plenty of (virtual) hardware sitting idle.

     

     

  • Daniel_Wolf's avatar
    Daniel_Wolf
    Icon for MVP rankMVP
    Jan 20, 2021

    It is sort of a good practice, but to shift traffic to a backup data center you would also use F5 DNS.

    You would have two clusters, one in each datacenter. And F5 DNS would distribute traffic across data centers.

    Take a look at this video: BIG-IP DNS Load Balancing Introduction

    Otherwise you would have plenty of (virtual) hardware sitting idle.

     

     

    • Daniel_Wolf's avatar
      Daniel_Wolf
      Icon for MVP rankMVP
      Jan 20, 2021

      On a second thought - without knowing more about your (cloud) infrastructure, your business requirements, the application itself, ... and so on, it is nearly impossible to provide you with a blueprint of a "silver bullet" architecture that will satisfy all your requirements.

       

      From the top of my head, I could see a couple of scenarios.

      1. One LTM cluster of four BIG-IP devices with one or more traffic groups
      2. Two LTM clusters in two datacenters
      3. Four standalone LTM might also be possible, depending on your level of automation / config management

       

      Option 2 and 3 combined with F5 DNS or F5 DNS Load Balancer Cloud Service and optional also with BIG-IQ.

       

      Depending on how far you have developed this idea already, it might make sense to reach out to someone who can help you with the design of your topology.

      • Shurik's avatar
        Shurik
        Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
        Jan 22, 2021

        Thank you Daniel! I like the DNS solution, we will see what can be done here :)