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Herman2024's avatar
Herman2024
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Jan 12, 2025

What is the best practice for migrating from iseries to rseries?

hi ,we plan to migrate to new r-series F5 (v15.1.x) from i-series  legacy appliance v13.x.x. We will create the same vlans and IP address config, but the physical interfaces will be different. The ne...
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Herman2024's avatar
Herman2024
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Jan 13, 2025

Thanks Sebastiansierra for your kind advice! we don't want to upgrade software to 15.1.x on the i-series first because of the impact to the production. Can we directly upload the v13.1.x UCS file (i-series) onto r-series (OS version is 15.1.x)?  APM module is  not provisioned.  Thanks in advance!

Sebastiansierra's avatar
Sebastiansierra
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Jan 13, 2025

Hi Herman2024,

 

If you don´t want to affect production in this migration, I recommend you upgrade the current devices from version 13 to 15 and then upload the new UCS in the r-series devices. There are many changes from 13 to 15, and the configuration is transformed in the upgrade process, so no, I don't recommend you try to load the UCS from 13 to 15; it will probably fails.

You could try to use the platform to migrate in the load, but again, the most probably is that the load fails.

https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K82540512

 

  • Herman2024's avatar
    Herman2024
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    Jan 14, 2025

    Hi Sebastiansierra , 

    thank you so much for your advice. Our current f5 i-series is very old unit and we don't prefer to upgrade it to 15.1.x from 13.1.x . Can we downgrade r-series OS from 15.1 to 13.1 ,then upload the UCS of i-series onto it, finally upgrade OS on r-series to 15.1? Please advise, thanks !

    • Sebastiansierra's avatar
      Sebastiansierra
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      Jan 27, 2025

      Hi Herman2024,

       

      Unfortunately, the r-series only supports version 15.x and 17.x, so you can deploy version 15 to have the base and install a new volume in version 13 to upload the ucs and migrate the config. This process is not supported and probably not official; it can work, so why not, I recommend you test it.

       

      But again, the most recommended is upgrade your current i-series devices, because its support version 15 and 17 too.

      • Sebastiansierra's avatar
        Sebastiansierra
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        Jan 28, 2025

        Hi Herman2024,

         

        Another way to migrate your configuration from 13 to 15 is to request a VE license to your F5 SE or sales representative to deploy a virtual machine in version 13.1 and upgrade it to 15.X generates a UCS and imports it in the r-series.

        In this case remember that VLANs, LACP are configured directly in the chassis, so you have to skip this config in your VE "the vlans can stay"