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CarlT's avatar
CarlT
Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
Jun 18, 2025

Replacing i2800 pair with new F5-BIG-AFM-r2800

Hi All

We need to replace our i2800 F5s with some new hardware soon.

What would be the simpliest process to migrate to them?

Also, I believe the TMOS OS will be gone and it will be F5 next, when does this come into force? can you upgrade from TMOS to F5 next? is it much different if I only use the GUI generally, so will the GUI be the same?

Cheers

Carl

4 Replies

  • Hello CarlT​ 

    The easiest way is to add new hardware to the existing cluster, let them sync and failover during a maintenace window.

    As for Next, F5 announced in App World that will be ready Q2 2026. But v17.5 will be supported until 1/1/2029.
    So you have plenty of time.

    TMOS to Next will also be an upgrade and not migrate
    F5 said that the GUI will have almost the same structure but modernized.

    • CarlT's avatar
      CarlT
      Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus

      Hi

      Thanks for the info, so when you say upgrade from TMOS to Next, do you mean we can just upgrade our LTMs from there current version to a version running Next like we would a normal upgrade procedure?

      Also, I see info on something called F5OS, is this another version of software, or another way of saying F5 Big IP Next ?

      Cheers

      • Injeyan_Kostas's avatar
        Injeyan_Kostas
        Icon for Cumulonimbus rankCumulonimbus

        F5OS is the software running on rseries and velos hardware. It is actually a hypervisor, similar approach as VCMP.

        On top of F5OS you run tenants. These tenants can be either TMOS or Next.

         

        As for the TMOS to Next upgrade, F5 says that it will be a simple version upgrade with possible fallback downgrade also.

  • Only thing I think could need testing is if you have virtual wire on iSeries as I know it is supported on rSeries 5xx and 10xxx but I have not tested it yet with AFM and for r2800 I wonder 🤔