DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ONE ARM and ROUTED DEPLOYMENT OF F5?

Hi Vineet,

"One-armed" configuration typically means an application servers you are load balancing is not configured on the network that is facing the VIP. Where the application server is not configured to use the F5 as their default gateway. When the F5 is not the default gateway, you have to SNAT client traffic to maintain route symmetry. The disadvantage is that you loose the ability to view the client IP address on the application server either through logs or troubleshooting . You would then need to deploy indirect methods to keep track of IP addresses. However, the power is that it can be inserted in an existing network where you cannot make network changes.

Routed is basically traffic that goes through the F5 either via load balancing or as a layer 3 hop. This is the preferred setup, but requires the application servers to be in position where the gateway is the F5.

I hope that clears things up