Forum Discussion

Altostratus

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 servi...

application delivery

BIG-IP

LTM

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

MVP

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.

One LTM cluster of four BIG-IP devices with one or more traffic groups
Two LTM clusters in two datacenters
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.