Forum Discussion

nov1ce_120072's avatar
nov1ce_120072
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Jan 20, 2019

Replacing the management switch

Hello,

 

A pair of BIG-IP appliances (running 12.1.2) in active/standby mode installed in two different DCs with the management port connected to management switches (with the management VLAN L2 spread between two DCs).

 

I need to replace the management switch in both DCs. Is it recommended to put standby unit Offline during the maintenance to prevent failover? Looking at tcpdump I see quite a lot of failover_packet traffic between two units over the management VLAN.

 

Thank you.

 

BIG-IP
devops
LTM
  • Kai_Wilke's avatar
    Kai_Wilke
    Icon for MVP rankMVP
    Jan 20, 2019

    Hi Novice,

     

    Using the „Force Offline“ mode is always a good choice if you perform maintenance task on a given unit. So yes i would use it to make sure the unit stays offline until the work is done...

     

    Cheers, Kai

     

  • Surgeon's avatar
    Surgeon
    Ret. Employee
    Jan 20, 2019

    If you are running viprion or vcmp on viprion then this command may not work for you. You need to configure minimum number of blades to keep one of the box standby

     

  • Stanislas_Piro2's avatar
    Stanislas_Piro2
    Icon for Cumulonimbus rankCumulonimbus
    Jan 21, 2019

    Hi,

    Management port can be used for following features:

    • Management through SSH / WebUI
    • Out of band access to management with AOM
    • Logs / SNMP outbound connections if destinations are in same network as Management port or a specific management route was configured
    • failover heartbeat

    The most critical service is failover heartbeat. The recommended configuration is to define 2 failover networks :

    • one HA network
    • Management Network

    If your deployment is configured with both networks (

    Device Management  ››  Devices  ››  your device ›› Failover
    ) and HA plan self IPs are defined with Port Lockdown 
    Allow Default
    or 
    Allow All
    , you can unplug the management port without issue.