F5 BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator Layer 2 Services with rSeries & VELOS
Introduction F5 rSeries & VELOS are rearchitected, next-generation hardware platforms that scale application delivery performance and automate application services to address many of today’s most critical business challenges. F5 rSeries & VELOS are key components of the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP). rSeries & VELOS rely on a Kubernetes-based platform layer (F5OS) that is tightly integrated with F5 TMOS software. Going to a microservice-based platform layer allows rSeries & VELOS to provide additional functionality that was not possible in previous generations of F5 BIG-IP platforms. The introduction of a new tenant-based architecture changes many things, including how you configure BIG-IP. Some of these changes affect the network configuration for Inline Layer 2 Services. By default, BIG-IP tenants only have a small set of internal MAC addresses available to them. However, Layer 2 Services (or Bridging) require additional MAC addresses. You must assign an adequate number of MAC addresses to what is called a “MAC pool”. A single Layer 2 Service requires two unique MAC addresses. The MAC Pool must have sufficient MAC addresses based on the number of Layer 2 Services you need. The following KB articles contain additional information on configuring MAC Pools on a BIG-IP rSeries or VELOS platform: K000133655: MAC address assignment in VELOS and rSeries systems K000135389: Configure the MAC Block Size for an existing BIG-IP tenant on the VELOS and rSeries systems Demo Video F5OS Configuration Let’s review the Network configuration on F5OS for a BIG-IP Tenant. From Network Settings select VLANs. Here you can see I have 6 Interfaces configured with VLANs. There’s a Lan VLAN for connectivity from the internal network to the BIG-IP. A Wan VLAN for connectivity from the BIG-IP to the internet. Then there are 4 “L2” VLANs configured to support two Inline Layer 2 Services with SSL Orchestrator. From the Interfaces screen you can associate the VLANs with the physical Interfaces. Next, allocate the VLANs to your BIG-IP Tenant. This is also where you configure the MAC Pool Size for your current BIG-IP Tenant. The MAC Pool can only be changed when the Tenant is not running. From Tenant Management > Tenant Deployments, you can stop the current Tenant if it is already running. Do this with caution during a change window or prior to deployment. Check the box next to the name of the Tenant you wish to configure, “big-ip-kevin” in this example. Then click Configure. Click OK to stop the Tenant When it’s stopped click the name of the Tenant to edit the configuration. Note the VLANs that are allocated to this BIG-IP Tenant: Find the section on MAC Data/MAC Block Size. Set the allocation to Small (8), Medium (16), or Large (32) depending upon your needs. I set mine to Medium. A Small allocation would be sufficient for this deployment but I want to leave room to add more Layer 2 Services in the future. Click Save & Close Click OK to update the configuration You can Deploy the Tenant now that the changes have been made Click OK to Deploy F5 BIG-IP Configuration Minimal configuration is needed on the BIG-IP since F5OS handles the underlying physical interfaces and VLANs. Check the status of the VLANs from Network > VLANs. From here we can see the VLAN configuration from F5OS is reflected in the BIG-IP. Define any Self IPs from Network > Self IPs Now we’re ready to configure SSL Orchestrator. In the interest of time, I will skip to the Network and Services configuration. From Services List click Add Service Double-click on Generic Inline Layer 2 Under Network Configuration click Add Select the L2 VLANs for this Inline L2 Service. Click Done. Click Add again and select the L2 VLANs for this Inline L2 Service. Click Done. It should look like the following: Click Save at the bottom For the Interception Rule select the Lan VLAN under Ingress Network and move it to the right. Click Save & Next at the bottom The Network configuration is now complete. SSL Orchestrator is configured with a Generic Inline Layer 2 Service that contains two Layer 2 “servers” Conclusion F5 rSeries & VELOS are hardware platforms that scale application delivery performance and automate application services to address many of today’s most critical business challenges. They are key components of the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP). In this article, you learned how to configure MAC Pools on rSeries and VELOS in order to create Layer 2 Inline Services with SSL orchestrator. Related Content K000133655: MAC address assignment in VELOS and rSeries systems K000135389: Configure the MAC Block Size for an existing BIG-IP tenant on the VELOS and rSeries systems SSL Orchestrator CloudDocs: Creating an Inline Layer 2 Service F5 rSeries: Next-Generation Fully Automatable Hardware F5 VELOS: A Next-Generation Fully Automatable Platform
Modernizing F5 Platforms with Ansible
I’ve been meaning to publish this article for some time now. Over the past few months, I’ve been building Ansible automation that I believe will help customers modernize their F5 infrastructure. This especially true for those looking to migrate from legacy BIG-IP hardware to next-generation platforms like VELOS and rSeries. As I explored tools like F5 Journeys and traditional CLI-based migration methods, I noticed a significant amount of manual pre-work was still required. This includes: Ensuring the Master Key used to encrypt the UCS archive is preserved and securely handled Storing UCS, Master Key and information assets in a backup host Pre-configuring all VLANs and properly tagging them on the VELOS partition before deploying a Tenant OS To streamline this, I created an Ansible Playbook with supporting roles tailored for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. It’s built to perform a lift-and-shift migration of a F5 BIG-IP configuration from one device to another—with optional OS upgrades included. In the demo video below, you’ll see an automated migration of a F5 i10800 running 15.1.10 to a VELOS BX110 Tenant OS running 17.5.0—demonstrating a smooth, hands-free modernization process. Currently Working Velos Velos Controller/Partition running (F5OS-C 1.8.1) - which allows Tenant Management IP to be in a different VLAN Migrates a standalone F5 BIG-IP i10800 to a VELOS BX110 Tenant OS VLAN'ed Source tenant required (Doesn’t support non-vlan tenants) rSeries Shares MGMT IP with the same subnet as the Chassis Partition. Migrates a standalone F5 BIG-IP i10800 to a R5000 Tenant OS VLAN'ed Source tenant required (Doesn’t support non-vlan tenants) Handles: Configuration and crypto backup UCS creation, transfer, and validation F5OS System VLAN Creation, and Association to Tenant - (Does Not manage Interface to VLAN Mapping) F5 OS Tenant provisioning and deployment inline OS upgrades during the migration Roadmap / What's Next Expanding Testing to include Viprion/iSeries (Using VCMP) Tenant Testing. Supporting hardware-to-virtual platform migrations Adding functionality for HA (High Availability) environments Watch the Demo Video View the Source Code on GitHub https://github.com/f5devcentral/f5-bd-ansible-platform-modernization This project is built for the community—so feel free to take it, fork it, and expand it. Let’s make F5 platform modernization as seamless and automated as possible.
