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Mnitguy_63171's avatar
Mnitguy_63171
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Feb 09, 2011

Big3d agent update

We are running two F5 1500’s running 10.2.0 Build 1789.0 Hotfix HF2 in an Active/Standby configuration. I have installed the F5 Management pack (ver. 2.0.0.516) for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2. My understanding is there is a new version out (ver. 2.1.5.440).

 

 

As part of the discover devices wizard, the big3d service is stopped, updated and restarted. This is optional and we have not updated our big3d service. According to a manual entry, the big3d service may be turned off on one of the F5’s, but if the big3d agent is off, the Global Traffic Manager can “no longer check the availability of the server or its virtual servers and the statistics screens display the status of these servers as unknown (blue ball).”

 

 

 

http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_gtm/manuals/product/gtm_config_guide_10_1/gtm_big3d.html

 

 

So what is the proper way to update the big3d agent in an Active/Standby F5 configuration to minimize risk?

 

 

Should we update the standby LTM first then failover?

 

 

What risk is there to servers being removed from any pools during the update of the big3d agent?

 

 

Thank you
management
microsoft
scom
  • Julian_Balog_34's avatar
    Julian_Balog_34
    Historic F5 Account
    Feb 11, 2011
    If your concern is the downtime of the big3d agent while it's being updated during F5 device discovery, then probably the manual update of the big3d agent would be the recommended way. For the active / standby configuration, as you correctly pointed out, you would update the standby device first and then fail-over, and again update the big3d on the standby device. Here's the article describing the manual update of the big3d agent: http://devcentral.f5.com/wiki/default.aspx/MgmtPack/Big3dManualUpdate.html.

     

     

    I think the risk of config changes related to servers being removed from pools during the big3d update is close to none, if you the manual update of the big3d agent. You can always sync the config from the active to the standby, prior to fail-over, and then your config is up-to-date when you'll do the big3d update on the standby again.

     

     

    Let us know if you need further assistance for manually updating the big3d agent.

     

     

    Julian

     

    F5 Management Pack Team