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Sammi's avatar
Sammi
Icon for Altocumulus rankAltocumulus
Dec 15, 2020

Is platform migration required between big-ip 4000 and i4600?

We are about to migrate from a pair of BIG-IP 4000 to a pair of i4600. We want to upgrade from the source version 12.1.0 to 15.1.2 at the same time if possible, therefore we aimed to use this as a basic procedure: https://techdocs.f5.com/en-us/bigip-16-0-0/big-ip-system-migrating-devices-and-configurations-between-different-platforms/migration-of-devices-running-different-version-software.html

 

However in that procedure it says the interfaces has to have the same names in the source and target devices, and that is not the case here. The source device is using interface 2.1 and that is not available in the target device.

 

I guess the "tmsh load sys ucs <filename> platform-migrate" is required in this case, right? If so, can we still go from 12.1.0 to 15.1.2 and still use the basic procedure above but with some platform specific changes?

application delivery
BIG-IP
LTM
migration migrate platform interface name

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  • Amine_Kadimi's avatar
    Amine_Kadimi
    Icon for MVP rankMVP
    Dec 16, 2020

    You absolutely need platform-migrate if you are importing to a new device, but afaik it will not map the old interface names to new ones, and there is another approach that may work for you:

    Configuring the network manually on the i4600 with new IP addresses, upgrading old and new pairs to the same tmos version, then joining the i4600 to the old cluster, then kicking the 4000 out of the cluster, and finally upgrading i4600 to 15.1.2

    This requires having the same license and modules provisioned

     

    Just in case: K9476: The F5 hardware/software compatibility matrix

     

  • Sammi's avatar
    Sammi
    Icon for Altocumulus rankAltocumulus
    Dec 18, 2020

    Thank you Amine. I ended up doing the procedure below, and it worked just fine. I am not to be held responsible for any typos or if this won't work for anyone else. For future reference:

    Start conditions:
S1 - Source device 1 - version 12.1.0
S2 - Source device 2 - version 12.1.0
T1 - Target device 1 - version 15.1.2
T2 - Target device 2 - version 15.1.2
 
S1 is active, S2 is passive, T1+T2 are standalone
 
Before migration:
S1+S2+T1+T2: Create UCS to have pre-migration baseline configs (easy to understand names) - download all UCS files locally to management PC
 
During migration window:
S1+T1+T2: Change master key:  modify sys crypto master-key prompt-for-password
S1+T1+T2: Check master key: show sys crypto master-key
S1+T1+T2: Save config: save sys config
S1+S2: Make sure S1 config is copied to S2, confirm master-keys on S1 and S2 are identical "show sys crypto master-key"
 
S1+S2:  Create migration UCS-files that we will upload to T1+T2
 
1)  S1: Force offline (Device Management - Devices)
2)  S2: See that S2 is active
3)  S1: Shut down S1
4)  T1: Change management IP hostname to S1 (Device - Platform or config in CLI)
5)  T1: Upload the migration-UCS from S1
6)  T1: load /sys ucs <filename> no-license platform-migrate
7)  T1: configure interfaces, trunks, vlans
8)  S2: Force offline -> T1 should become online
9)  S2: Shutdown S2
10) T2: Change management IP hostname to S2 (Device - Platform or config in CLI)
11) T2: Upload the migration-UCS from S2
12) T2: load /sys ucs <filename> no-license platform-migrate
13) T2: configure interfaces, trunks, vlans
14) T1+T2: Sync device groups
15) Done