Deploying F5 BIG-IP LTM with SAP Business Objects Part I

In this multi-part post I am going to review a recent deployment of F5 LTM + WA in support of SAP Business Objects business intelligence platform.  We deployed this landscape at the SAP Co-Innovation lab in Palo Alto California.  There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this deployment:

- This was a ‘one armed’ deployment where both the LTM virtual server and Tomcat servers were on the same network

- We provided traffic management for Sybase IQ servers on port 5788, this port is configurable and is not hard set

- In order to support scale testing for the Business Objects environment we deployed a BIG-IP 11000 with a SNAT Pool configured.  This was to support performance and scale testing at the COIL labs.  Your configuration may have a smaller hardware platform and you may not need to configure a SNAT Pool.

 

F5 Hardware and Software Components Used in the Deployment

Software: F5 BIG-IP 11.0 HF1 Build 8121

F5 Hardware Platform: F5 BIG-IP 11050

Networking Setup:

BOE_Trunk: Interfaces 1.1, 1.2

VLAN Setup: VLAN186 untagged BOE_Trunk tag: 4094

Self IP Addresses:

MGT: 10.1.86.200 VLAN186

Production: 10.1.86.201 VLAN186

 

Configure SNAT Pool

- From the F5 web UI navigate to SNATs -> SNAT List and click on the + to add a new SNAT

- Provide a name for the new SNAT list, in this instance we will name it ‘BOE_SNAT’

- Under the Configuration -> Translation menu select the drop down and choose SNAT_POOL

- On the right hand side select BOE_SNAT_POOL

- Keep all other defaults and click ‘Finish’

- Navigate to SNATs -> SNAT Pool and click + to add a SNAT pool

- Provide a name for this pool in this example we named our pool BOE_SNAT_POOL

- In the Configuration section enter the IP addresses for the members of your SNAT pool and click ‘add’ in this instance we added 10.1.86.202 and 10.1.86.203

- Click ‘Update’ to commit the changes to the configuration

- Configure a SNAT translation list from the UI navigate to SNATs -> SNAT Translation List and click +

- Provide the name for your SNAT translation add the IP address in this case we will add 10.1.86.202 and 10.1.86.203

- Check the box next to ‘Inherit device group from current partition/path’

- Check the box for ARP

- Accept all remaining defaults and click ‘Finish’

 

Configure Monitors:

BOE_HTTP Monitor

- From the UI navigate to monitors and click on ‘Create’

- Provide a name for your monitor in this example we will call it BOE_HTTP

- Under ‘Type’ select HTTP (A list of menus will display below)

- Under ‘Send String’ add the line GET /BOE/portal/1108161604/InfoView/logon.jsp\r\n

- Under ‘Receive String’ add the line BUSINESS OBJECTS

- Accept all other defaults and choose ‘Update’

BOE_HTTPS_Monitor

- Click create again under the ‘monitors’ section

- Provide a name for your monitor in this example we will name our monitor BOE_HTTPS

- Under ‘Type’ select HTTPS

- Under ‘Send String add the line GET /BOE/portal/1108161604/InfoView/logon.jsp\r\n

- Under ‘Receive String’ add the line BUSINESS OBJECTS

- Accept all other defaults and choose ‘Update’

Configure Profiles

HTTP Profiles:

- From the Profiles section click ‘Create’ in this example we named our profile ‘BOE_HTTP’

o Parent profile is http

o Accept all defaults and click ‘Update’

- From the same tab click create again in this case we named our profile ‘BOE_base_http’

o Parent profile is set to http

o Click on the checkbox to modify the config and change ‘Pipelining’ to Disabled

o Click ‘Update’

Add Nodes to Configuration:

- Navigate to ‘Local Traffic’ -> ‘Nodes’

- Click create and specify a ‘Node Specific’ monitor select ICMP

Node IP Addresses

10.1.86.101

10.1.86.102

10.1.86.103

10.1.86.104

10.1.86.105

10.1.86.106

10.1.86.107

10.1.86.108

10.1.86.109

10.1.86.110

10.1.86.119

10.1.86.120

10.1.86.139

10.1.86.150

10.1.86.151

10.1.86.152

10.1.86.153

10.1.86.154

10.1.86.155

10.1.86.156

10.1.86.157

10.1.86.158

10.1.86.159

10.1.86.160

10.1.86.161

10.1.86.162

 

In part 2 we will setup the virtual servers and configure Web Accelerator (WA) in part 3 we will review the setup of Sybase with LTM.  Please feel free to provide comments or feedback!

Published Jul 03, 2012
Version 1.0
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