Forum Discussion
NimbostratusF5 GTM Clustering with all in One VM
Hi there,
I'm fairly new to F5 products and I was hoping someone could point me down the right path. I've got 3 F5 Virtual Editions running. 2 at the main data center and 1 at the DR site. The 2 at the main data center are a LTM cluster and the DR is a standalone LTM. All that I have working perfectly.
I want to take advantage of the GTM portion of the product so as to be able to auto fail over traffic to the DR site if needed.
My questions:
1. Do I setup both boxes at the main data center as GTMs? If I do what cluster approach should I use? I want the DR site to be the main fail over if the primary data center fails.
2. Based on what I have seen, unlike the LTM which has a floating IP for websites, the GTM clustering requires each GTM to have its own IP.
We are running 11.5.1
thanks in advance,
Robert
1 Reply
Hi,
GTM works as a standalone product regardless of LTM Device Clustering. As long as you have a minimum of 1 GTM configured somewhere you can do intelligent DNS (GSLB) using wideIPs that would resolve with LTM VIPs from both DC. For DNS redundancy it's of course best to have several.
You may choose to have 1 GTM on each DC (total 2) or 1 GTM on each BIG-IP (total 3). For GTM on your LTM cluster, you can choose to use a unique listener IP for each GTM, or to use a floating IP as the listener.
There isn't a best way to do things, it depends on your infrastructure, constraints, requirements and budget really. I suggest you document yourself further on AskF5 on how to implement GTM as you'll face other challenges along the way like setting up proper iQuery meshes between your devices. You could also contact F5 Professional Services so they can assist you with the design of your GTM solution based on your requirements.
Salim
