on 27-May-2011 14:39
ARX (Adaptive Resource Switch) is a filesystem virtualization switch, which provides intelligent file virtualization for storage environments. ARX can be used to tier files across multiple filers, provide disaster recovery services, and allow administrators to migrate files between backend filers without disruption of service. These are a few of the use cases for ARX, but by no means all of them. Over the next few months, we will be covering ARX heavily here on DevCentral. Let’s get started by deploying ARX Virtual Edition in our ESX environment.
ARX Virtual Edition resource requirements
The resource requirements are difference depending on the license you have for your ARX VE.
If you have a trial license obtained from http://www.f5.com/trial the requirements are as follows:
If you have a production license or evaluation license, the requirements are as follows:
Prerequisites
Installation
Configuration – command-line portion
Management port IP address | 10.0.0.150 |
Management port subnet mask | 255.255.255.0 |
Management port gateway IP address | 10.0.0.254 |
Switch private IP address | (accept default) |
Switch private subnet mask | (accept default) |
Chassis UUID | (accept default) |
Crypto-officer username | admin |
Crypto-officer password | (use your own) |
System password | (use your own) |
Master key | (accept default) |
Configuration – web interface portion
Switch name | test-arx-ve |
Management protocols | SSH, API Access – HTTPS (we may want this for some iControl examples later on) |
Proxy IP addresses | 10.0.0.160 (1 is required for ARX VE) |
NTP server | 10.0.0.254 |
Time zone region | North and South America contrinents |
Time zone city | PST (-0800)/PDT (-0700) United States Pacific time |
DNS domain name | arx-test-ve.f5-test.com |
Primary DNS server | 10.0.0.254 |
DNS search domains | f5-test.com |
Fully qualified domain name of e-mail server | smtp.f5-test.com |
E-mail recipients | admin@f5-test.com |
SNMP | (optional) |
Activating the license automatically
Activating the license manually
Conclusion
Now that you’ve got ARX VE up and running in your environment, you can begin playing with some of the functionality. We will be using a combination of commercial filer simulators in the examples that follow over the next few months. If you want to get ahead of the game, get your favor filer up and running on your ESX box. See everyone next week!
Please, where is the rest of the articles in this series? Is it still relevant in 2019?