Simplifying Application Health Monitoring with F5 BIG-IP
A simple agreement between BIG-IP administrators and application owners can foster smooth collaboration between teams. Application owners define their own simple or complex health monitors and agree to expose a conventional /health endpoint. When a /health endpoint responds with an HTTP 200 request, BIG-IP assumes the application is healthy based on the application owners' own criteria. The Challenge of Health Monitoring in Modern Environments F5 BIG-IP administrators in Network Operations (NetOps) teams often work with application teams because the BIG-IP acts as a full proxy, providing services like: TLS termination Load balancing Health monitoring Health checks are crucial for effective load balancing. The BIG-IP uses them to determine where to send traffic among back-end application servers. However, health monitoring frequently causes friction between teams. Problems with the Traditional Approach Traditionally, BIG-IP administrators create and maintain health monitors ranging from simple ICMP pings to complex monitors that: Simulate user transactions Verify HTTP response codes Validate payload contents Track application dependencies This leads to several issues: Knowledge Gap: NetOps may not fully grasp each application's intricacies. Change Management Overhead: Application updates require retesting monitors, causing delays. Production Risk: Monitors can break after application changes, incorrectly marking services as up/down. Team Friction: Troubleshooting failed health checks involves tedious back-and-forth between teams. A Cloud-Native Solution The cloud-native and microservices communities have patterns that elegantly solve these problems. One widely used pattern is the [health endpoint], which adapts well to BIG-IP environments. The /health Endpoint Convention Cloud-native applications commonly expose dedicated health endpoints like /health, /healthy, or /ready. These return standard status codes reflecting the application's state. The /health endpoint provides a clear contract between NetOps and application teams for BIG-IP integration. Implementing the Contract This approach establishes a simple agreement: Application Team Responsibilities: Implement /health to return HTTP 200 when the application is ready for traffic Define "healthy" based on application needs (database connectivity, dependencies, etc.) Maintain the health check logic as the application changes BIG-IP Team Responsibilities: Configure an HTTP monitor targeting the /health endpoint Treat 200 as "healthy", anything else as "unhealthy" Benefits of This Approach Aligned Expertise: Application teams define health based on their knowledge. Less Friction: BIG-IP configuration stays stable as applications evolve. Better Reliability: Health checks reflect true application health, including dependencies. Easier Troubleshooting: The /health endpoint can return detailed diagnostic info, but this is ignored by the BIG-IP and used strictly for troubleshooting. Implementation Examples F5 BIG-IP Health Monitor Configuration ltm monitor http /Common/app-health-monitor { defaults-from /Common/http destination *:* interval 5 recv 200 recv-disable none send "GET /health HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: example.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n" time-until-up 0 timeout 16 } Node.js Health Endpoint Implementation const express = require('express'); const app = express(); const port = 3000; app.get('/', (req, res) => { res.send('Application is running'); }); app.get('/health', async (req, res) => { try { const dbStatus = await checkDatabaseConnection(); const serviceStatus = await checkDependentServices(); if (dbStatus && serviceStatus) { return res.status(200).json({ status: 'healthy', database: 'connected', services: 'available', timestamp: new Date().toISOString() }); } res.status(503).json({ status: 'unhealthy', database: dbStatus ? 'connected' : 'disconnected', services: serviceStatus ? 'available' : 'unavailable', timestamp: new Date().toISOString() }); } catch (error) { res.status(500).json({ status: 'error', message: error.message, timestamp: new Date().toISOString() }); } }); async function checkDatabaseConnection() { // Check real database connection return true; } async function checkDependentServices() { // Check required service connections return true; } app.listen(port, () => { console.log(`Application listening at http://localhost:${port}`); }); Adopting this health check pattern can greatly reduce friction between NetOps and application teams while improving reliability. The simple contract of HTTP 200 for healthy provides the needed integration while letting each team focus on their expertise. For apps that can't implement a custom /health endpoint, BIG-IP admins can still use traditional ICMP or TCP port monitoring. However, these basic checks can't accurately reflect an app's true health and complex dependencies. This approach fosters collaboration and leverages the specialized knowledge of both network and application teams. The result is more reliable services and smoother operations.
Can I use XC as a TCP proxy and DDoS Protection?
Hello, experts! I’m a longtime BIG-IP user but a complete newbie to XC. I have a task and would love some guidance on the best way to approach it. The goal is to use XC as a TCP proxy and for DDoS protection. The scenario: A client has a distributed network of ATMs that connect to a server. XC should sit in front of the server as a TCP proxy. The requests come in via IP. A few questions: Which XC product should I use for this? TCP Load Balancer requires requests to come via a domain name, correct? Would I need a dedicated IP from XC in this case? Can DDoS protection be applied in this setup? Am I thinking about this correctly? Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!Acronyms
Acronyms, are used all the time and the author /presentor is usually convinced that everyone in the audience understands what they mean, but every once in a while you hear or read something that you are not sure of the meaning. We are all professionals, that do not want to look like we are the only one in the room who does not know. So after hearing a talk or reading an article we often find ourselves looking it up; this can become confusing because acronyms mean different things when we search outside our field. For example CE what does it mean? The letters "CE" are the abbreviation of French phrase "Conformité Européene" which literally means "European Conformity". In the dictionary you will probably find CE meaning Common Era or Christian Era. When looking for a more modern meaning, we will find it may mean Consumer Electronics. But here in our community, when someone writes CE, they mean Customer Edge. Here, you have, at your fingertips a list of acronyms, unconfused with other fields. Please let me know if I missed any acronyms so I can add them to our list. A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | A ACL - Access Control List ADC - Application Delivery Controller ADN - Application delivery network ADO - Application Delivery Optimization ALG - Application Layer Gateway AI - Artificial Intelligence AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript and XML API - Application Programming Interface APM - Access Policy Manager ASM - Application Security Manager (F5’s Application Security Manager™ ASM is also known as BD) AWAF - Advanced Web Application Firewall AWS - Amazon Web Services B BaDos - Behaviour AniDDoS (Behaviour AniDDoS, an F5 product that is used against DDoS) BDM -- Business Decision Maker BGP - Border Gateway Protocol BOO - Build Once Only C CDN - Content Delivery Network CE - Customer Edge CGNAT - Carrier Grade NAT CIA triad - Confidentiality, Integrity,Availability (triad Security model) CIFS - Common Internet file system CRS - Core RuleSet CRUD - Create , Read, Update, Delete CSRF - Cross-Site Request Forgery, also known as XSRF CUPS - Control Plane and User Plane Separation CVE - Common Vulnerabilities and exposures CVSS - Common Vulnerability Scoring System D DAP - Digital Adoption Plateform DAST - Dynamic testing. (Examples of such tools Qualys and Nessus) DB - Database DC - Direct Communication / Direct Connect DDoS - Distributed Denial-of-Service DGW - Default Gateway Weight Settings Protocol (DGW) DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol DIO - Distribution Initiated Opportunity DLP - Data Loss Protection DMZ - Demilitarized Zone [Demilitarized Zone DNS - Domain Name System DoH - DNS over HTTP DoT - DNS over TLS DPIAs - Data Protection Impact Assessment DRP - Disaster Recovery Plan DSR - Data Subject Rights E ELA - Enterprise License Agreement EDPB - European Data Protection Board EDR - Endpoint Detection and Response EPP - Endpoint Protection Platforms EUSA - End User Software Agreement F FIPS - Federal Information Processing Standards FPGA - field-programmable gate array FQDN - Fully Qualified Domain Name FRR - FRRouting G GDPR - General Data Protection Regulations GKE - Google Kubernetes Engine GPU - Graphic Processing Unit GSLB - Volterra’s Global Load Balancing gRPC - Google Remote Procedure Call H HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act HMAC -Hash-based message authentication HSL - High-Speed Logging HTTP - Hypertext Transfer HTTPS - Hypertext Transfer Protocol I IANA - Internet Assigned Numbers Authority IBD - Integrated Bot Defense ICO - Information Commission Office IDS - Intrusion Detection System IIoT - Industrial Internet of Things ILM - Information Lifecycle Management IoT - Internet of Things IPAM - IP Address Management IPSec - Internet Protocol Security IR - Incidence Response ISO - Standardization Organization ISP - Internet Service Provider J JS - Javascript K KMS - Key Management Service / Key Management System KPI - Key Performance Indicator KV - Key Value k8s - Kubernetics L L7 - Layer 7 - The application layer LB - Load Balancer LBaaS - Load Balancing as a Service LDAP -Lightweight Directory Access Protocol LFI - Local File Exclusion attack LTM - Local Traffic Manager M MAM - Mobile Application Management MDM - Mobile Device Management MFA - Multi-Factor Authentication MitM - Man in the Middle ML - Machine Learning MSA - Master Service Agreement MSP - Managed Service Provider MT - Managed Tenant mTLS - Mutual Transport Layer Security MUD - Malicious User Detection MUM - Malicious User Mitigation N NAP - Network access point NAS - Network-Attached Storage NAT - Network Address Translation NIC - NetworkInterface Cards NFV - Network functions NFVI - Network functions virtualization NPU - Network Processing Units O OAS - OpenAPI Specification (Swagger) OPA - Open Policy Agent OT - Original Tenant OWASP - Open Web Application Security Project P PAAS - Platform as a service (PaaS PBD - Proactive Bot Defence. PCI DSS - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. PBD - Privacy by Design PE - Portable executable PFS - Perfect Forward Secrecy PIA - Privacy Impact Assessments PII - Personally identifiable information POP - Point of Presence Q QoS - Quality of Service R RBAC - Role based Access control RCE - Remote Code Execution RDP - Remote Desktop Protocol RE - Routing Engine, Regional Edges REST - Representational State Transfer *[[Rest API -Representational State Transfer]]* RFI - Request For Information OR Remote File Inclusion vulnerability attack RFP - Request for Proposal RPC - Remote Procedure Call RSA – (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) is a public-key cryptosystem RTT - Round Trip Time S SAM - Security Accounts Manager SAML - Security Assertion Markup Language SCIM - System for Cross-domain Identity Management SCP - Secure Copy Protocol SCP - Server Communication Proxy SDC - F5 Security and Distributed Cloud SDK - Software Development Kit SDN - Software Defined Network SE - Solutions Engineer SIEM - Security Information & Event Management SLA - Service Level Availability SLED -State,Local Government and Education SLI - Service Level Indicator SNAT - Source Network Address Translation SOC - Security Operations Center SP - Service Provider SPK - Service Proxy for Kubernetes SRE - Site reliability engineering SRT - Security Research Team at F5 SSD - Solid State Drive SSL - Secure Sockets Layer SSO - Single Sign On SSRF - Server-side request forgery STRIDE - Spoofing, Tampering,Repudiation,Information Leakage, Denial of Service, Elevation of Privilege (a TMA Model) T TCL - Tool Command Language TCP - [Transmission Control Protocol TDM - Technical Decision Maker TLS - Transport layer Security TMA - Threat Model Assessment TO - Tenant Owner TOCTOU - Time of Check vs Time of Use TOI - Transfer of Information TTFB - Time to First Bit TTL - Time to Live U UAM - User Access Management UI - User Interface URI - Uniform Resource URL - Uniform Resource Locator UX - User Experience V VER - Volterra Edge Router VES - Volterra Edge Services VIF - virtual interface VIP - Virtual IP address VM - Virtual Machine Vnet - Virtual network VPC - Virtual Private Cloud VPN - Virtual Private Network VRS - Volterra Rules Set W WAAP - Web Application& API Protection WAF - Web application firewall WPA3 - Wi-Fi Alliance Access 3 X XML - Extensible Markup Language [XML - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML) XSS - Cross Site Scripting XSRF - Cross-Site Request Forgery, also known as CSRF Y Z ZTNA -Zero Trust Network Access ZTP - Zero-Touch Provisioning ZTS - Zero Trust SecurityGLOBAL Live Webinar: Why DNS Global Server Load Balancing Is Necessary in 2023
This event is open to all F5 users regardless of geographic location. Date: Thursday, September 21, 2023 Time: 10:00am PT | 1:00pm ET Speaker: Nico Cartron, Sr. Manager Product, F5 What's the webinar about? Most applications today are no longer hosted in central locations but in multiple clouds and environments. This allows for better service to users, but it also requires routing traffic to the closest data center. This is where DNS load balancing can offer critical support, particularly when it comes to performance and user experience. Join us for an F5 expert-led webinar to learn how and why DNS load balancing makes sense for today’s digital world – and specifically why F5 Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer makes the most sense for customers of F5 Distributed Cloud Services. In this webinar, we’ll cover: Get split load across compute instances Automatically detect primary site failure Automate zero touch failover Gain built-in DDoS protection and faster performance Register today, learn more. Click Here
F5 XC articles published in the Technical Article section lately March 7 , 2023
Here is a list of the F5 XC articles that were published lately on DevCentral in the Technical Articles section. If you find them useful, please give a Kudo. We appreciate it and we know the author would as well. F5 Hybrid Security Architectures (Part 1 - F5's Distributed Cloud WAF and BIG-IP Advanced WAF) F5 Hybrid Security Architectures (Part 2 - F5's Distributed Cloud WAF and NGINX App Protect WAF) End-to-End Fraud and Risk Detection with F5 Distributed Cloud Silverline DDoS capabilities are now available in F5 Distributed Cloud Using F5 Distributed Cloud AppStack & CE Site Survivability Easily Protect Your Applications from DDoS with F5 Distributed Cloud DDoS Auto-Mitigation Mitigation of OWASP API6: 2019 Mass Assignment vulnerability using F5 Distributed Cloud Platform Overview of Trusted Client IP Headers in F5 Distributed Cloud Platform Demo Guide & Video Series for F5 Distributed Cloud Network Connect (Multi-Cloud Networking) Prevention of OWASP API Security API2:2019 Broken Authentication using F5 Distributed Cloud Platform Mitigating OWASP Web App Top 10 2021 : A08-Software and Data Integrity Failures using F5 XC Platform Egress control for Kubernetes using F5 Distributed Cloud Services Comprehensive solution for OWASP Web App A09:2021 Security Logging & Monitoring Failures from F5 XC How To Protect Your Applications from Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) with F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense for Mobile Apps in XC WAAP Part 1: The Bot Defense Mobile SDK Deploy High-Availability and Latency-sensitive workloads with F5 Distributed Cloud Mitigation of OWASP Web Application Top 10 2021 A04:2021-Insecure Design using F5 XC platformF5 XC articles published in the Technical Article section lately - Jan 29-2023
Here is a list of the F5 XC articles that were published lately on DevCentral in the Technical Articles section. If you find them useful, please give a Kudo. We appreciate it and we know the author would as well. Introduction to F5 Distributed Cloud Platform Per Route WAF Policy Using Distributed Cloud DNS Load Balancer with Geo-Proximity Using F5 Application Security and DOS Solutions with AWS Global Accelerator - Part 4 Testing Bot Management Strategy - Defense against malicious bots with F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense Kubernetes architecture options with F5 Distributed Cloud Services Using F5 Distributed Cloud private connectivity orchestration for secure multi-cloud infrastructure F5 Distributed Cloud - Regional Decryption with Virtual Sites F5 Hybrid Security Architectures: One WAF Engine, Total Flexibility (Intro) F5 Hybrid Security Architectures (Part 1 - F5's Distributed Cloud WAF and BIG-IP Advanced WAF) F5 Hybrid Security Architectures (Part 2 - F5's Distributed Cloud WAF and NGINX App Protect WAF) Generate API SDK for F5 Distributed CloudF5 XC articles published on DevCentral in the Technical Article lately - Dec- 19 -2022
Here is a list of the F5 XC articles what we published on DevCentral in the Technical Article section lately. If you find them useful, give a Kudo, we’d appreciate it and we know the author would appreciate it too. Happy Holidays to all. Integrate F5 Distributed Cloud remote logging with ELK Automation of F5 Distributed Cloud Platform Client-Side Defense feature - Part I Automation of Malicious User detection/mitigation using F5 Distributed Cloud Platform Automation of OWASP TOP 10 2021: A03 Injection mitigation using F5 Distributed Cloud PlatformF5 XC articles and videos published on DevCentral in the Technical Article lately - Nov-9-22
Here’s a list of F5 XC articles that were published on DevCentral in the Technical Article section lately. If you find them useful, give a Kudo, we’d appreciate it and we know the author would appreciate it too. Mitigation of OWASP A06:2021 - Vulnerable & Outdated Components using F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP How to Split DNS with Managed Namespace on F5 Distributed Cloud (XC) Part 1 – DNS over HTTPS Learn How to Apply F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP with GKE via a Public GCP IP Address. Use F5 Distributed Cloud to control Primary and Secondary DNS How to Split DNS with Managed Namespace on F5 Distributed Cloud (XC) Part 2 – TCP & UDP How I did it - "Configuring remote logging for F5 Distributed Cloud Services" Mitigating OWASP API Sec Top 10 API7:2019 Security Misconfiguration using F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP Use F5 Distributed Cloud to service chain WAAP and CDN F5 Distributed Cloud Bot Defense Protecting AWS CloudFront Distributions Out of the Shadows: API Discovery, Inventory, and Security Detect and stop exfiltration attempts with F5 Distributed Cloud App Infrastructure Protection
