DevCentral MVP Program
Every day, all over the world, smart, passionate people are doing amazing things with their F5 gear and sharing that knowledge with their peers. The DevCentral Community MVP program shines a spotlight on the best, brightest and most active members of our community, and rewards them for their efforts. The DevCentral Community MVP is an annual award given to a select cohort of the best, brightest, and most active members of our community - users who actively improve F5 user communities and the broader tech industry by sharing their technical experience and expertise with others. We like to reward people who help make our technical user communities healthy and a place users want to interact, and would like to say thank-you to you specifically for making our communities a valuable resource for all users. MVPs get a special badge on their profile for the calendar year of their cohort, so users can know at a glance who they are. Among other things, they also get exclusive swag, invitations to technical deep-dive and sneak-preview sessions presented by F5 SMEs, invitations to the MVP Group and are often highlighted in our monthly Featured Member articles. Here's the announcement of the 2023 cohort! To nominate someone who has helped you to be an MVP, click HERE.2024 DevCentral MVP Announcement
Congratulations to the 2024 DevCentral MVPs! The DevCentral MVP Award is given annually to the outstanding group of experts in the technical F5 user community who go out of their way to engage with the user community. The award is our way of recognizing their significant contributions, because while all of our users collectively make DevCentral one of the top community sites around and a valuable resource for everyone, MVPs regularly go above and beyond in assisting fellow F5 practitioners by sharing their deep technical experience and knowledge. MVPs get badges in their DevCentral and Reddit profiles so everyone can see that they are recognized experts. They also receive MVP swag, and invitations to regular exclusive webinars and behind-the-scenes looks at things like roadmaps, new product sneak-previews, and innovative concepts in development at F5. DevCentral is grateful for and proud to recognise the technical knowledge and exemplary community engagement of these 43 outstanding community members: Amine_Kadimi Amr_Ali Austin_Geraci boneyard Bryan_T_ CA_Valli Daniel_Wolf Dario_Garrido Enes_Afsin_Al F5_Design_Engineer jaikumar_f5 Jim_Schwartzme1 JoseLabra JoshBecigneul Juergen_Mang Kai_Wilke KeesvandenBos Kevin_Davies Lidev lnxgeek LouisK Mayur_Sutare Michael_Saleem mihaic Mike757 Mohamed_Ahmed_Kansoh Mohamed_Salah_ Niels_van_Sluis Nikoolayy1 P_Kueppers Patrik_Jonsson Paulius PhatANhappy Philip_Jonsson PSFletchTheTek Rodolfo_Nützmann Samir ScottE Sebastian_Mani1 Sebastiansierra StephanManthey Tofunmi Whisperer2023 DevCentral MVP Announcement
Congratulations to the 2023 DevCentral MVPs! Without users who take time from their busy days to share their experience and knowledge for others, DevCentral couldn't be the helpful user community that it is today. To that end, the DevCentral MVP Award is given annually to the outstanding group of experts in the technical F5 user community who go out of their way to engage with the user community. The award is our way of recognizing their significant contributions, because while all of our users collectively make DevCentral one of the top community sites around and a valuable resource for everyone, MVPs regularly go above and beyond in assisting fellow F5 users. 2022 was tough in a lot of ways, and we are extra-grateful to this year's MVPs for taking the time and making the effort to help others. MVPs get badges in their DevCentral and Reddit profiles so everyone can see that they are recognized experts. This year’s MVPs will receive thank-you gifts, and invitations to regular exclusive webinars and behind-the-scenes looks at things like roadmaps, new product sneak-previews, and innovative concepts in development. The 2023 DevCentral MVPs are: AlexBCT Amine_Kadimi Austin_Geraci boneyard Bryan_T_ CA_Valli Dario_Garrido Donald_J_Ross Edouard Enes_Afsin_Al F5_Design_Engineer iaine jaikumar_f5 Jim_Schwartzme1 JoshBecigneul Juergen_Mang Kai_Wilke KeesvandenBos Kevin_Davies Lidev lnxgeek LouisK Mayur_Sutare mihaic Mike757 Mohamed_Ahmed_Kansoh Mohamed_Salah_ neeeewbie Niels_van_Sluis Nikoolayy1 P_Kueppers Patrik_Jonsson Paulius Philip_Jonsson PSFletchTheTek Rodolfo_Nützmann Rodrigo_Albuque Samir spalande ScottE Sebastian_Maniak Sebastiansierra StephanManthey Tofunmi xuwen2022 DevCentral MVP Announcement
Congratulations to the 2022 DevCentral MVPs! Without users who take time from their busy days to share their experience and knowledge for others, DevCentral would be more of a corporate news site and not an actual user community. To that end, the DevCentral MVP Award is given annually to the outstanding group of individuals – the experts in the technical F5 user community who go out of their way to engage with the user community. The award is our way of recognizing their significant contributions, because while all of our users collectively make DevCentral one of the top community sites around and a valuable resource for everyone, MVPs regularly go above and beyond in assisting fellow F5 users. We understand that 2021 was difficult for everyone, and we are extra-grateful to this year's MVPs for going out of their ways to help others. MVPs get badges in their DevCentral profiles so everyone can see that they are recognized experts. This year’s MVPs will receive a glass award, certificate, exclusive thank-you gifts, and invitations to exclusive webinars and behind-the-scenes looks at things like roadmaps, new product sneak-previews, and innovative concepts in development. The 2022 DevCentral MVPs are: Aditya K Vlogs AlexBCT Amine_Kadimi Austin_Geraci Boneyard Daniel_Wolf Dario_Garrido David.burgoyne Donamato 01 Enes_Afsin_Al FrancisD iaine jaikumar_f5 Jim_Schwartzme1 JoshBecigneul JTLampe Kai Wilke Kees van den Bos Kevin_Davies Lionel Deval (Lidev) LouisK Mayur_Sutare Neeeewbie Niels_van_Sluis Nikoolayy1 P K Patrik_Jonsson Philip Jönsson Rob_Carr Rodolfo_Nützmann Rodrigo_Albuquerque Samstep SanjayP ScottE Sebastian Maniak Stefan_Klotz StephanManthey Tyler.Hatton2021 DevCentral MVP Announcement
Congratulations to the 2021 DevCentral MVPs! The DevCentral MVP Award is given annually to an exclusive group of expert users in the technical community who go out of their way to engage with the community by sharing their experience and knowledge with others. This is our way of recognizing their significant contributions, because while all of our users collectively make DevCentral one of the top community sites around and a valuable resource for everyone, MVPs regularly go above and beyond in assisting fellow F5 users both on- and offline.We understand that 2020 was difficult for everyone, and we are extra-grateful to this year's MVPs for going out of their ways to help others. MVPs get badges in their DevCentral profiles so everyone can see that they are recognized experts (you'll also see this if you hover over their name in a thread). This year’s MVPs will receive a glass award, certificate, exclusive thank-you gifts, and invitations to exclusive webinars and behind-the-scenes looks at things like roadmaps and new product sneak-previews. The 2021 DevCentral MVPs (by username) are: · Andy McGrath · Austin Geraci · Amine Kadimi · Boneyard · Dario Garrido · EAA · FrancisD · Hamish Marson · Iaine · Jad Tabbara (JTI) · jaikumar_f5 · JG · JuniorC · Kai Wilke · Kees van den Bos · Kevin Davies · Leonardo Souza · lidev · Manthey · Mayur Sutare · Nathan Britton · Niels van Sluis · Patrik Jonsson · Philip Jönsson · Piotr Lewandowski · Rob_carr · Samir Jha · Sebastian Maniak · TimRiker · Vijay · What Lies Beneath · Yann Desmaret · Youssef
BIG-IP Logging and Reporting Toolkit - part one
Joe Malek, one of the many awesome engineers here at F5, took it upon himself to delve deeply into a very interesting but often unsung part of the BIG-IP advanced configuration world: logging and reporting. It’s my great pleasure to get to share with you his awesome study and the findings therein, along with (eventually) a toolkit to help you get started in the world of custom log manipulation. If you’ve ever questioned or been curious about your options when it comes to information gathering and reporting, this is definitely something you should read. There will be multiple parts, so stay tuned. This one is just the intro. Logging & Reporting Toolkit - Part 1 Logging & Reporting Toolkit - Part 2 Logging & Reporting Toolkit - Part 3 Logging & Reporting Toolkit - Part 4 Description F5 products occupy critical positions in application delivery infrastructure. They serve as gateways, proxies, accelerators and traffic flow arbiters. In these roles customer expectations vary for the degree and amount of event information recorded. Several opportunities exist within our current product capabilities for our customers and partners to produce and consume log messages from and via F5 products. Efforts to date include generating W3C style log messages on LTM via iRules, close integration with leading vendors and ASM (requires askf5 login), and creating relationships with leading vendors to best serve our customers. Significant capabilities exist for customers and partners to create their own logging and reporting solutions. Problems and opportunity In the many products offered by F5, there exists a variety of logging structures. The common log protocols used to emit messages by F5 products are Syslog (requires askf5 login) and SNMP (requires askf5 login), along with built-in iRules capabilities. Though syslog-ng is commonplace, software components tend to vary in transport, verbosity, message formatting and sometimes syslog facility. This can result in a high degree of data density in our logs, and messages our systems emit can vary from version to version.[i] The combination of these factors results in a challenge that requires a coordinated solution for customers who are compelled by regulation, industry practice, or by business process, to maintain log management infrastructure that consumes messages from F5 devices.[ii] By utilizing the unique product architecture TMOS employs by sharing its knowledge about networks and applications as well as capabilities built into iRules, TMOS can provide much of this information to log management infrastructure in a simple and knowledgeable manner. In effect, we can emit messages about appliance state and offload many message logging tasks from application servers. Based on our connection knowledge we can also improve the utility and value of information obtained from vendor provided log management infrastructure.[iii] Objectives and success criteria The success criteria for including an item in the toolkit is: 1. A capability to deliver reports on select items using the leading platforms without requiring core development work on an F5 product. 2. An identified extensibility capability for future customization and report building. Assumptions and dependencies Vendors to include in the toolkit are Splunk, Q1Labs and PresiNET ASM logging and reporting is sufficient and does not need further explanation Information to be included in sample reports should begin to assist in diagnostic activities, demonstrate ROI by including ROI in an infrastructure and advise on when F5 devices are nearing capacity Vendor products must be able to accept event data emitted by F5 products. This means that some vendors might have more comprehensive support than others. Products currently supported but not in active development are not eligible for inclusion in the toolkit. Examples are older versions of BIG-IP and FirePass, and all WANJet releases. Some vendor products will require code modifications on the vendor’s side to understand the data F5 products send them. [i] As a piece of customer evidence, Microsoft implemented several logging practices around version 9.1. When they upgraded to version 9.4 their log volume increased several-fold because F5 added log messages and changed existing messages. As a result existing message taxonomy needed to be deprecated and we caused them to need to redesign filters, reports and create a new set of logging practices. [ii] Regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Gramm Leach Blyley Act, Federal Information Security Management Act, PCI DSS, and HIPPA. [iii] It is common for F5 products to manipulate connections via OneConnect, NATs and SNATs. These operations are unknown to external log collectors, and pose a challenge when assembling a complete view of the network connections between a client and a server via an F5 device for a single application transaction. What’s Next? In the next installment we’ll get into the details of the different vendors in question, their offerings, how they work and integrate with BIG-IP, and more. Logging and Reporting Toolkit Series: Part Two | Part Three2020 DevCentral MVP Announcement
Congratulations to the 2020 DevCentral MVPs! The DevCentral MVP Award is given annually to an exclusive group of expert users in the technical community who go out of their way to engage with the community by sharing their experience and knowledge with others. This is our way of recognizing their significant contributions, because while all of our users collectively make DevCentral one of the top community sites around and a valuable resource for everyone, MVPs regularly go above and beyond in assisting fellow F5 users both on- and offline. MVPs get badges in their DevCentral profiles so everyone can see that they are recognized experts (you'll also see this if you hover over their name in a thread). This year’s MVPs will receive a glass award, certificate, thank-you gift, and an invitation to attend the MVP Summit at Agility 2020 as guests of F5. The 2020 DevCentral MVPs (by username) are: · Andy McGrath · Austin Geraci · Boneyard · Dario Garrido · FrancisD · Hamish Marson · Iaine · Jad Tabbara (JTI) · jaikumar_f5 · JG · Jinshu · Joel Newton · Kai Wilke · Kees van den Bos · Kevin Davies · Kevin Worthington · Lee Sutcliffe · Leonardo Souza · Manthey · Michael Jenkins · Nathan Britton · Nicolas Destor · Niels van Sluis · Patrik Jonsson · Philip Jönsson · Piotr Lewandowski · Rob_carr · Samir Jha · Tim Rupp · TimRiker · Vijay · What Lies Beneath · Yann Desmaret · Youssef Make sure to check out the MVP page for more info about the program and the MVPs themselves.2019 DevCentral MVP Announcement
Congratulations to the 2019 DevCentral MVPs! The DevCentral MVP Award is given to a select group of exemplary people in the technical community who actively engage and share their experience and knowledge with others. We recognize their significant contributions to our community and the larger technical industry, and we want to say thank you. While all of our users collectively make DevCentral one of the top community sites around and a valuable resource for everyone, MVPs regularly go above and beyond in assisting fellow F5 users both on- and offline. It all starts with a single post… MVPs all get badges in their DevCentral profiles so everyone can see that they’re in the presence of greatness (you'll also see it if you hover over their name in a thread). This year’s MVPs will receive a certificate, award, and thank-you gift, access to select Beta programs, and the devout gratitude of the users they've helped as well as the DevCentral team here at F5. The 2019 DevCentral MVPs (by username) are: Andy McGrath Austin Geraci Boneyard De coug Fulmetal Hamish Marson Iaine jaikumar_f5 Jie Gao Jinshu Joel King Joel Newton JTI Kai Wilke Kees van den Bos Kevin Davies Lee Sutcliffe Leonardo Souza Manthey Mark Wall Nathan Britton Nicolas Destor Niels van Sluis Patrik Jonsson Philip Jönsson Piotr Lewandowski Rhazi Youssef Rob_carr Samir Jha Stanislas Piron Tim Rupp Vijay What Lies Beneath Yann Desmaret Make sure to check out the MVP page for more info about the program and the MVPs themselves. DevCentral MVPs – thank you for all your contributions!BIGdiff - A Little Help For Software Upgrades
Published on behalf of DevCentral MVP Leonardo Souza If you have been to F5 Agility in Boston and went to my presentation, you should have already an idea of what I will talk about in this article, but you will learn more things, so continue reading. If you haven’t heard of BIGdiff yet, have you been living in Mars? Don’t worry I will explain what that is and how it can help you with software upgrades, and whatever you find useful. It is not an AI that will do the upgrade for you but will help you with the upgrade. Challenges These are the challenges BIGdiff addresses: You are upgrading a F5 device with 1,000 virtual servers and 1,000 wide IPs. How do you know if you have the same number of virtual servers and wide IPs after the upgrade? How do you know if you have the same number of available virtual servers and wide IPs after the upgrade? If the number of available virtual servers or wide IPs changed after upgrade, how can you find what changed? Existing Solutions First Challenge: There are multiple solutions already for this challenge. Both for LTM and GTM, you can take a print screen of the statistics before the upgrade and compare after the upgrade. For LTM, Statistics > Module Statistics > Local Traffic For GTM, Statistics > Module Statistics > DNS > GSLB This in 13.1.0.1, but I think this exist since v9, and will be in similar place in all versions. Qkview and iHealth combination. iHealth will show you configuration totals but is mainly LTM and does not show you GTM objects. Network Map is another option. However, network map is only for LTM. Also, that is a map that start from a virtual server, so if you have a pool that is not linked to a virtual server that will not count in the totals. Second Challenge: The statistics also tell you the status of the objects, so that solution works for both challenges. Third Challenge: There is no automated way to get this. You could run multiple tmsh commands to get the status before the upgrade, or just generate a qkview that will run those commands for you. However, you will still need to compare the objects one by one. If the only slot you got for the software upgrade was 3am in a Sunday, I am sure you will miss some objects or fall asleep. Solution I hope you are thinking about the same, computers don’t need to sleep, and they are better/faster than humans to compare 2 strings or numbers (that is basically 0 or 1, so they are not that smart). So, the conclusion is simple, let the computer do the work comparing objects while you drink another coffee to keep you awake to complete the software upgrade. The idea is simple, get the list of objects, and their respective status, before and after the software upgrade, then compare them and report the result. In this context, object is any entity that has a status in a BIG-IP device that may be affected by the software upgrade. Looking BIG-IP modules, that translate to LTM and GTM objects, for example, virtual servers and wide IPs. That is where BIGdiff script comes to help you and automate that process. You run BIGdiff before the upgrade, upgrade the device, and run again after the upgrade. The script will then generate a HTML file with the results. Technical Bits BIGdiff is a bash script and uses dialog program to generate the graphical menus. Dialog is a common program for CLI menus and is what F5 uses for the config command for example. The script uses snmpwalk to query locally the device for the object status, because so far has been the faster option I tested. That basically generates the same text file before and after the upgrade. Those text files that are used after to compare the objects. The script will generate the results in a HTML format, with tables. If something already exists and do the job well, there is no reason why not to use, so the script uses the TableFilter JavaScript library, that provide filter functionalities for HTML tables. You just need to have the JavaScript library file in the same folder that you have the HTML file, and the magic will happen. If you don’t need the filter functionality, you don’t need to have the JavaScript library, and static tables will be presented. The script is optimized to use mainly bash functionality, to be as faster as possible. I tested the script to compare 13 thousand objects, and it complete the task in a couple minutes. 13K objects is a really big configuration, so even if the device you plan to run the script has a large configuration, that will be just a couple minutes in your change window to run the script. Support The script only supports BIG-IP software, no support for EM or BIG-IQ. The reason is simple, there is no use case for those software. Versions 11.x.x/12.x.x/13.x.x/14.x.x were tested and are supported. As new versions are released, I will be testing to see if any change is needed to support that version. LTM objects are supported and will be listed even if LTM is not provisioned, as majority of the other modules do use LTM internally. GTM objects and partitions are also supported. Using BIGdiff Go to the code share link: BIGdiff Download the tablefilter.js file, if you want to use the table filter functionality as described above. Download the bigdiff.sh that is the script file. In the F5 device, create a folder in /shared/tmp, as /shared is shared between all volumes. Upload the file bigdiff.sh to the F5 device. Change the file permission to run: chmod +x bigdiff.sh Run the script: ./bigdiff.sh Run the script before the upgrade. Upgrade the F5 device. Run the script after the upgrade. Download the file ending in .html from the F5 device. Open the HTML file with your favourite browser. Make sure you have the tablefilter.js in the same folder as the HTML file, if you want the filter functionalities. Other Use Cases The reason I wrote the script was to help with the software upgrades, but you are not limited to software upgrades. You can use the script to compare the objects after you have done something, that can be an upgrade or something else. You can use the software for consolidations, for example 2 devices that will be replaced by a single device. You run the script in the old devices, merge the txt files that are created with the list of objects. Import the configuration in the new device, upload the script and merged txt file you created. Run the script in the new device, and the script will report to you if the objects have the same status as in the old devices. Another use case is for major changes. You can run the script, do the changes, and run the script again. The script will then tell you if you broke something. Silent Mode Silent mode is mainly to be used to integrate with other tools. The image above explains how to use. Conclusion Read the information in the code share page about know issues. I hope you find the script useful.
