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tolinrome_13817's avatar
tolinrome_13817
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Feb 27, 2014

Clustering Devices

I currently have an LTM virtual which is going away and is being replaced by two identical physical devices. I have a couple of questions regarding clustering.

 

  1. Is it possible to export the LTM virtual config and import it into the new hardware device? Or is it better to start from scratch? I figure if I export and import the config I will need to have the same version on the hardware devices and then I can upgrade the hardware to the latest version? Any pros and cons or suggestions on this?

     

  2. How should the clustering actually be configured, (active\standby or active\active)? Any pros and cons, suggestions?

     

Any good documentation\scenarios would be helpful. Thanks.

 

application delivery
availability
deployment
design
LTM

7 Replies

  • Moe_Jartin's avatar
    Moe_Jartin
    Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
    Feb 27, 2014

    What version is the virtual? If it is 11.2 or so you could just add the virtual and the two hardware devices all to the same cluster and then sync the config. Fail over to the hardware device and then remove and shutdown the VE.

     

    I wouldn't do active/active unless there is some requirement forcing it.

     

    Joe

     

    • nathe's avatar
      nathe
      Icon for Cirrocumulus rankCirrocumulus
      Feb 28, 2014
      AFAIK you need 11.4 and above to have heterogenous platforms in a cluster. Might be mistaken on this so something to double check if you go down this route.
    • Moe_Jartin's avatar
      Moe_Jartin
      Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
      Feb 28, 2014
      You are correct. You do have to have 11.4 or later for it to be supported by F5 but it works just fine in earlier versions. I have done it several times with different combinations. Diff hardware platforms, hardware and virtual, and even hardware and vCMP guest. It is a nice zero-downtime migration solution.
  • Patrik_Jonsson's avatar
    Patrik_Jonsson
    Icon for MVP rankMVP
    Feb 27, 2014

    While I like Joes suggestion better this might be faster: Setup the physical devices with the base configuration (VLAN, Self IP's etc) and then apply the /config/bigip.conf and /config/partitions/*.

     

    All depends on uptime and your familiarity with the cli.

     

    I would not go active/active either.

     

  • nathe's avatar
    nathe
    Icon for Cirrocumulus rankCirrocumulus
    Feb 28, 2014

    So, the way I would do this....

     

    If I presume you're going from v10 to v11 (as you've not mentioned this). You can import a v10 UCS file into v11. So, build one of the hardware devices with a base configuration (network settings, self IPs etc.) and then import and restore using this UCS file. You will need to use the no-platform switch though, and the no-license one too. This should hopefully get you a duplicate of your virtual on the hardware device.

     

    Then, do a base build on the secondary appliance and then go through the normal clustering procedure, this will copy the config onto the other box.

     

    Hopefully I've not missed anything key.

     

    Hope this helps,

     

    N

     

  • tolinrome_13817's avatar
    tolinrome_13817
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Feb 28, 2014

    Joe, that's a good idea and the virtual is 11.4. So, as you stated I would like to add the new devices with the virtual to a cluster, synch, and then failover to the hardware devices. Woudl I be able to choose which hardware device to fail over too? Any documentation on what you suggested or how you did it? Thanks.