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Forum Discussion

dragonflymr's avatar
dragonflymr
Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
Oct 12, 2015

Most stable TMOS version

Hi,

 

I am looking for advice based on production experience what is most stable TMOS version to be deployed on new BIG-IP 2000s deployment. That is very simple config using least connection, source IP persistence and TCP monitor. No http profile used, probably PerformanceL4 type of server will be used. Around 50 VS with average 4 pool members.

 

No SSL offload, compression or caching - so no fancy features necessary, stability and performance is most important.

 

So what version you can recommend?

 

Piotr

 

application delivery
deployment
LTM
performance
TMOS

7 Replies

  • Hannes_Rapp's avatar
    Hannes_Rapp
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Oct 12, 2015

    In this order: 11.5.3, 11.5.1, 11.4.1, 11.6, 11.2.1, 12.0

     

    My recommendation is based on clusters that use LTM + ASM modules. If you have a very minimalistic setup (as you described), you probably can't go wrong with any pick. Since 11.4.1, there have been many significant LTM improvements and I would no longer recommend installing anything older than that.

     

  • dragonflymr's avatar
    dragonflymr
    Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
    Oct 12, 2015

    Thanks a lot. Is there any reason that you are not recommending 11.6 or 12.0. Because you do not have personal experience or for some other reason?

     

    Piotr

     

    • Hannes_Rapp's avatar
      Hannes_Rapp
      Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
      Oct 12, 2015
      11.6 - Personal bad experience with HF4. Had a recurring memory leak incident and an engineering hotfix did not help. However, many companies use this version in production environment, and have no complaints. I believe it comes down to complexity of configurations and the luck factor. 12.0 - No bad experiences, but I'd categorize this version as risky. A typical consulting firm would not recommend opting for a new major release which is only 6 weeks old. This is not an issue with F5 or this particular release, but I believe this risk factor applies to any "fresh from the bakery oven" software of any vendor. Perhaps 12.0 is worth a serious consideration a few months from now.
    • dragonflymr's avatar
      dragonflymr
      Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
      Oct 12, 2015
      Thanks a lot. I think I will go for 11.6 as it's simple config. And trust me, I am not fan of putting newest versions in production right after release :-) Too long in this business to be test bed for infancy period :-) Piotr
    • nathe's avatar
      nathe
      Icon for Cirrocumulus rankCirrocumulus
      Oct 12, 2015
      Can i just say that I'm in total agreement with Hannes and this is my order of preference to my customers. To add, however, I am only recommending 11.6.0 if there's feature required in this release, otherwise it's 11.5.3. One other thing to note is the End of Technical Support dates, this is another reason why 11.5.3 is more tempting than 11.6.0 as this runs out in 2017, but 11.5.3 has support till 2020. My 2c