LTM migration for Proxy, Anti-Spam and web servers

The F5 LTM is a Proxy.

 

 

Anti-Spam? I'm not sure how to speak to that. I'm not sure if the F5 can do anything about that.

 

 

Active Passivie Load Balancing

 

There are may different ways to accomplish this on the F5 LTM. It really depends on how you want to do it.

 

 

I generally use Priority Activation Groups. See this thread and see if it helps:

 

http://devcentral.f5.com/Community/GroupDetails/tabid/1082223/asg/52/afv/topic/aft/1172236/aff/31/showtab/groupforums/Default.aspx

 

 

SNAT

 

SNAT is used to change the Source IP of a connection to that of the F5 Load Balancer, usually to force the L3 return path for response traffic through the load balancer when routing from the real server back to the client's real address would bypass the load balancer (Also called a Broken Route). (Since traffic is destination NAT'd in most load balancing scenarios, the response must traverse the load balance to reverse that translation, and SNAT is one way to enforce that return path.)

 

 

http://devcentral.f5.com/Wiki/default.aspx/AdvDesignConfig/SNAT.html

 

 

The shorter answer of when and when not to use SNAT.

 

 

Is the Destination Server on an Subnet Owned by the F5?

 

- If Yes, SNAT'ing is NOT required.

 

- If No, Enable SNAT'ing

 

 

Does the Server Generate Traffic to a different server on the same Subnet? (You will generally see this when a Website is configured to use a Web Service)

 

- If Yes, Enable SNAT'ing

 

- If No, SNAT'ing is NOT required.

 

 

When it doubt....Enable SNAT. The only thing that you will lose by Enabling SNAT'ing is the Sourse IP Address of the incoming Client connections (but you can get around that too by enabling X-Forward).