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Kubernetes architecture options with F5 Distributed Cloud Services

Summary F5 Distributed Cloud Services (F5 XC) can both integrate with your existing Kubernetes (K8s) clusters and/or host a K8s workload itself. Within these distinctions, we have multiple archi...
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Updated Jan 15, 2025
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MichaelOLeary's avatar
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I'm a Solution Architect at F5. Over the years I've become an expert in Kubernetes and cloud architectures. I publish articles and blog posts to share as much knowledge as possible. I love hanging out with colleagues and customers, so reach out any time!
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Preston_Ashworth's avatar
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Joined May 22, 2019
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adit
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Nov 10, 2023

MichaelOLeary @
In the original Article , in Architecture 1, it stated :

Architecture 1: External Load Balancer (Secure K8s Gateway)

In a Secure Kubernetes Gateway architecture you have integration with your existing K8s platform, using the XC node as the external load balancer for your K8s cluster. In this scenario, you create a ServiceAccount and kubeconfig file to configure XC. The XC node then performs service discovery against your K8s API server. I've covered this process in a previous article, but the advantage is that you can integrate with existing K8s platforms. One disadvantage is that this is true for NodePort services only (not ClusterIP).

However when it came to the revised version in Oct 2023, this changed to :

This allows exposing both NodePort and ClusterIP services via the XC node.

Could you please let me know how we can expose via Cluster IP , because Cluster IP is internal to the cluster and provides internal connectivity , what am i missing here ?