F5 Distributed Cloud – CE High Availability Options: A Comparative Exploration
This article explores an alternative approach to achieve HA across single CE nodes, catering for use cases requiring higher performance and granular control over redundancy and failover management. Introduction F5 Distributed Cloud offers different techniques to achieve High Availability (HA) for Customer Edge (CE) nodes in an active-active configuration to provide redundancy, scaling on-demand and simplify management. By default, F5 Distributed Cloud uses a method for clustering CE nodes, in which CEs keep track of peers by sending heartbeats and facilitating traffic exchange among themselves. This method also handles the automatic transfer of traffic, virtual IPs, and services between CE peers —excellent for simplified deployment and running App Stack sites hosting Kubernetes workloads. However, if CE nodes are deployed mainly to manage L3/L7 traffic and application security, this default model might lack the flexibility needed for certain scenarios. Many of our customers tell us that achieving high availability is not so straightforward with the current clustering model. These customers often have a lot of experience in managing redundancy and high availability across traditional network devices. They like to manage everything themselves—from scheduling when to switch over to a redundant pair (planned failover), to choosing how many network paths (tunnels) to use between CEs to REs (Regional Edges) or other CEs. They also want to handle any issues device by device, decide the number of CE nodes in a redundancy group, and be able to direct traffic to different CEs when one is being updated. Their feedback inspired us to write this article, where we explore a different approach to achieve high availability across CEs. The default clustering model is explained in this document: https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs/ves-concepts/site#cluster-of-nodes Throughout this article, we will dive into several key areas: An overview of the default CE clustering model, highlighting its inherent challenges and advantages. Introduction to an alternative clustering strategy: Single Node Clustering, including: An analysis of its challenges and benefits. Identification of scenarios where this approach is most applicable. A guide to the configuration steps necessary to implement this model. An exploration of failover behavior within this framework. A comparison table showing how this new method differs from the default clustering method. By the end of this article, readers will gain an understanding of both clustering approaches, enabling informed decisions on the optimal strategy for their specific needs. Default CE Clustering Overview In a standard CE clustering setup, a cluster must have at least three Master nodes, with subsequent additions acting as Worker nodes. A CE cluster is configured as a "Site," centralizing operations like pool configuration and software upgrades to simplify management. In this clustering method, frequent communication is required between control plane components of the nodes on a low latency network. When a failover happens, the VIPs and services - including customer’s compute workloads - will transition to the other active nodes. As shown in the picture above, a CE cluster is treated as a single site, regardless of the number of nodes it contains. In a Mesh Group scenario, each mesh link is associated with one single tunnel connected to the cluster. These tunnels are distributed among the master nodes in the cluster, optimizing the total number of tunnels required for a large-scale Mesh Group. It also means that the site will be connected to REs only via 2 tunnels – one to each RE. Design Considerations for Default CE Clustering model: Best suited for: 1- App Stack Sites: Running Kubernetes workloads necessitates the default clustering method for container orchestration across nodes. 2- Large-scale Site-Mesh Groups (SMG) 3- Cluster-wide upgrade preference: Customers who favour managing nodes collectively will find cluster-wide upgrades more convenient, however without control over the upgrade sequence of individual nodes. Challenges: o Network Bottleneck for Ingress Traffic: A cluster connected to two Regional Edge (RE) sites via only 2 tunnels can lead to only two nodes processing external (ingress) traffic, limiting the use of additional nodes to process internal traffic only. o Three-master node requirement: Some customers are accustomed to dual-node HA models and may find the requirement for three master nodes resource-intensive. o Hitless upgrades: Controlled, phased upgrades are preferred by some customers for testing before widespread deployment, which is challenging with cluster-wide upgrades. o Cross-site deployments: High network latency between remote data centers can impact cluster performance due to the latency sensitivity of etcd daemon, the backbone of cluster state management. If the network connection across the nodes gets disconnected, all nodes will most likely stop the operation due to the quorum requirements of etcd. Therefore, F5 recommends deploying separate clusters for different physical sites. o Service Fault Sprawl and limited Node fault tolerance: Default clusters can sometimes experience a cascading effect where a fault in a node spreads throughout the cluster. Additionally, a standard 3-node cluster can generally only tolerate the failure of two nodes. If the cluster was originally configured with three nodes, functionality may be lost if reduced to a single active node. These limitations stem from the underlying clustering design and its dependency on etcd for maintaining cluster state. The Alternative Solution: HA Between Multiple Single Nodes The good news is that we can achieve the key objectives of the clustering – which are streamlined management and high availability - without the dependency on the control plane clustering mechanisms. Streamlined management using “Virtual Site”: F5 Distributed Cloud provides a mechanism called “Virtual Site” to perform operations on a group of sites (site = node or cluster of nodes), reducing the need to repeat the same set of operations for each site. The “Virtual Site” acts as an abstraction layer, grouping nodes tagged with a unique label and allows collectively addressing these nodes as a single entity. Configuration of origin pools and load balancers can reference Virtual Sites instead of individual sites/nodes, to facilitate cluster-like management for two or more nodes and enabling controlled day 2 operations. When a node is disassociated from Virtual Site by removing the label, it's no longer eligible for new connections, and its listeners are simultaneously deactivated. Upgrading nodes is streamlined: simply remove the node's label to exclude it from the Virtual Site, perform the upgrade, and then reapply the label once the node is operational again. This procedure offers you a controlled failover process, ensuring minimal disruption and enhanced manageability by minimizing the blast radius and limiting the cope of downtime. As traffic is rerouted to other CEs, if something goes wrong with an upgrade of a CE node, the services will not be impacted. HA/Redundancy across multiple nodes: Each single node in a Virtual Site connect to dual REs through IPSec or SSL/TLS tunnels, ensuring even load distribution and true active-active redundancy. External (Ingress) Traffic: In the Virtual Site model, the Regional Edges (REs) distribute external traffic evenly across all nodes. This contrasts with the default clustering approach where only two CE nodes are actively connected to the REs. The main Virtual Site advantage lies in its true active/active configuration for CEs, increasing the total ingress traffic capacity. If a node becomes unavailable, the REs will automatically reroute the new connections to another operational node within the Virtual Site, and the services (connection to origin pools) remain uninterrupted. Internal (East-West) Traffic: For managing internal traffic within a single CE node in a Virtual Site (for example, when LB objects are configured to be advertised within the local site), all network techniques applicable to the default clustering model can be employed in this model as well, except for the Layer 2 attachment (VRRP) method. Preferred load distribution method for internal traffic across CEs: Our preferred methods for load balancing across CE nodes are either DNS based load balancing or Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routing utilizing BGP for redundancy. DNS Load Balancer Behavior: If a node is detached from a Virtual Site, its associated listeners and Virtual IPs (VIPs) are automatically withdrawn. Consequently, the DNS load balancer's health checks will mark those VIPs as down and prevent them from receiving internal network traffic. Current limitation for custom VIP and BGP: When using BGP, please note a current limitation that prevents configuring a custom VIP address on the Virtual Site. As a workaround, custom VIPs should be advertised on individual sites instead. The F5 product team is actively working to address this gap. For a detailed exploration of traffic routing options to CEs, please refer to the following article here: https://community.f5.com/kb/technicalarticles/f5-distributed-cloud---customer-edge-site---deployment--routing-options/319435 Design Considerations for Single Node HA Model: Best suited for: 1- Customers with high throughput requirement: This clustering model ensures that all Customer Edge (CE) nodes are engaged in managing ingress traffic from Regional Edges (REs), which allows for scalable expansion by adding additional CEs as required. In contrast, the default clustering model limits ingress traffic processing to only two CE nodes per cluster, and more precisely, to a single node from each RE, regardless of the number of worker nodes in the cluster. Consequently, this model is more advantageous for customers who have high throughput demands. 2- Customers who prefer to use controlled failover and software upgrades This clustering model enables a sequential upgrade process, where nodes are updated individually to ensure each node upgrades successfully before moving on to the other nodes. The process involves detaching the node from the cluster by removing its site label, which causes redirecting traffic to the remaining nodes during the upgrade. Once upgraded, the label is reapplied, and this process is repeated for each node in turn. This is a model that customers have known for 20+ years for upgrade procedures, with a little wrinkle with the label. 3- Customers who prefer to distribute the load across remote sites Nodes are deployed independently and do not require inter-node heartbeat communication, unlike the default clustering method. This independence allows for their deployment across various data centers and availability zones while being managed as a single entity. They are compatible with both Layer 2 (L2) spanned and Layer 3 (L3) spanned data centers, where nodes in different L3 networks utilize distinct gateways. As long as the nodes can access the origin pools, they can be integrated into the same "Virtual Site". This flexibility caters to customers' traditional preferences, such as deploying two CE nodes per location, which is fully supported by this clustering model. Challenges: Lack of VRRP Support: The primary limitation of this clustering method is the absence of VRRP support for internal VIPs. However, there are some alternative methods to distribute internal traffic across CE nodes. These include DNS based routing, BGP with Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routing, or the implementation of CEs behind another Layer 4 (L4) load balancer capable of traffic distribution without source address alteration, such as F5 BIG-IPs or the standard load balancers provided by Azure or AWS. Limitation on Custom VIP IP Support: Currently, the F5 Distributed Cloud Console has a restriction preventing the configuration of custom virtual IPs for load balancer advertisements on Virtual Sites. We anticipate this limitation will be addressed in future updates to the F5 Distributed Cloud platform. As a temporary solution, you can advertise the LB across multiple individual sites within the Virtual Site. This approach enables the configuration of custom VIPs on those sites. Requires extra steps for upgrading nodes Unlike the Default clustering model where upgrades can be performed collectively on a group of nodes, this clustering model requires upgrading nodes on an individual basis. This may introduce more steps, especially in larger clusters, but it remains significantly simpler than traditional network device upgrades. Large-Scale Mesh Group: In F5 Distributed Cloud, the "Mesh Group" feature allows for direct connections between sites (whether individual CE sites or clusters of CEs) and other selected sites through IPSec tunnels. For CE clusters, tunnels are established on a per-cluster basis. However, for single-node sites, each node creates its own tunnels to connect with remote CEs. This setup can lead to an increased number of tunnels needed to establish the mesh. For example, in a network of 10 sites configured with dual-CE Virtual Sites, each CE is required to establish 18 IPSec tunnels to connect with other sites, or 19 for a full mesh configuration. Comparatively, a 10-site network using the default clustering method—with a minimum of 3 CEs per site—would only need up to 9 tunnels from each CE for full connectivity. Opting for Virtual Sites with dual CEs, a common choice, effectively doubles the number of required tunnels from each CE when compared to the default clustering setup. However, despite this increase in tunnels, opting for a Mesh configuration with single-node clusters can offer advantages in terms of performance and load distribution. Note: Use DC Groups as an alternative solution to Secure Mesh Group for CE connectivity: For customers with existing private connectivity between their CE nodes, running Site Mesh Group (SMG) with numerous IPsec tunnels can be less optimal. As a more scalable alternative for these customers, we recommend using DC Cluster Group (DCG). This method utilizes IP-in-IP tunnels over the existing private network, eliminating the need for individual encrypted IPsec tunnels between each node and streamlining communication between CE nodes via IP-n-IP encapsulations. Configuration Steps The configuration for creating single node clusters involves the following steps: Creating a Label Creating a Virtual Site Applying the label to the CE nodes (sites) Review and validate the configuration The detailed configuration guide for the above steps can be found here: https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs/how-to/fleets-vsites/create-virtual-site Example Configuration: In this example, you can create a label called "my-vsite" to group CE nodes that belong to the same Virtual Site. Within this label, you can then define different values to represent different environments or clusters, such as specific Azure region or an on-premise data center. Then a Virtual Site of “CE” type can be created to represent the CE cluster in “Azure-AustraliaEast-vSite" and tied to any CE that is tagged with the label “my-vsite=Azure-AustraliaEast-vSite”: Now, any CE node that should join the cluster (Virtual Site), should get this label: Verification: To confirm the Virtual Site configuration is functioning as intended, we joined two CEs (k1-azure-ce2 and k1-azure-ce03) into the Virtual Site and evaluated the routing and load balancing behavior. Test 1: Public Load Balancer (Virtual Site referenced in the pool) The diagram shows a public "Load Balancer" advertised on the RE referencing a pool that uses the newly created Virtual Site to access the private application: As shown below, the pool member was configured to be accessed through the Virtual Site: Analysis of the request logs in the Performance dashboard confirmed that all requests to the public website were evenly distributed across both CEs. Test 2: Internal Load Balancer (LB advertised on the Virtual Site) We deployed an internal Load Balancer and advertised it on the newly created Virtual Site, utilizing the pool that also references the same Virtual Site (k1-azure-ce2 and k1-azure-ce03). As shown below, the Load Balancer was configured to be advertised on the Virtual Site. Note: Here we couldn't use a "shared" custom VIP across the Virtual Site due to a current platform constraint. If a custom VIP is required, we should use "site" as opposed to "Virtual Site" and advertise the Load Balancer on all sites, like below picture: Request logs revealed that when traffic reached either CE node within the Virtual Site, the request was processed and forwarded locally to the pool member. In the example below: src_site: Indicates the CE (k1-azure-ce2) that processed the request. src_ip: Represents the client's source IP address (192.168.1.68). dst_site: Indicates the CE (k1-azure-ce2) from which the pool member is accessed. dst_ip: Represents the IP address of the pool member (192.168.1.6). Resilience Testing: To assess the Virtual Site's resilience, we intentionally blocked network access from k1-azure-ce2 CE to the pool member (192.168.1.6). The CE automatically rerouted traffic to the pool member via the other CE (k1-azure-ce03) in the Virtual Site. Note:By default, CEs can communicate with each other via the F5 Global Network. This can be customized to use direct connectivity through tunnels if the CEs are members of the same DC Cluster Group (IP-n-IP tunneling) or Secure Mesh Groups (IPSec tunneling). The following picture shows the traffic flow via F5 Global Network. The following picture shows the traffic flow via the IP-n-IP tunnel when a DC Clustering Group (DCG) is configured across the CE nodes. Failover Behaviour When a CE node is tied to a Virtual Site, all internal Load Balancers (VIPs) advertised on that Virtual Site will be deployed in the CE. Additionally, the Regional Edge (RE) begins to use this node as one of the potential next hops for connections to the origin pool. Should the CE become unavailable, or if it lacks the necessary network access to the origin server, the RE will almost seamlessly reroute connections through the other operational CEs in the Virtual Site. Uncontrolled Failover: During instances of uncontrolled failover, such as when a node is unexpectedly shut down from the hypervisor, we have observed a handful of new connections experiencing timeouts. However, these issues were resolved by implementing health checks within the origin pool, which prevented any subsequent connection drops. Note: Irrespective of the clustering model in use, it's always recommended to configure health checks for the origin pool. This practice enhances failover responsiveness and mitigates any additional latency incurred during traffic rerouting. Controlled Failover: The moment a CE node is disassociated from the Virtual Site — by the removal of its label— the CE node will not be used by RE to connect to origin pools anymore. At the same time, all Load Balancer listeners associated with that Virtual Site are withdrawn from the node. This effectively halts traffic processing for those applications, preventing the node from receiving related traffic. During controlled failover scenarios, we have observed seamless service continuity on externally advertised services (to REs). On-Demand Scaling: F5 Distributed Cloud provides a flexible solution that enables customers to scale the number of active CE nodes according to demand. This allows you to easily add more powerful CE nodes during peak periods (such as promotional events) and then remove them when demand subsides. With the Virtual Sites method, you can even mix and match node sizes within your cluster (Virtual Site), providing granular control over resources. It's advisable to monitor CE node performance and implement node related alerts. These alerts notify you when nodes are operating at high capacity, allowing for timely addition of extra nodes as needed. Moreover, you can monitor node’s health in the dashboard. CPU, Memory and Disk utilizations of nodes can be a good factor in determining if more nodes are needed or not. Furthermore, the use of Virtual Sites makes managing this process even easier, thanks to labels. Node Based Alerts: Node-based alerts are essential for maintaining efficient CE operations. Accessing the alerts in the Console: To view alerts, go to Multi-Cloud Network Connect > Notifications > Alerts. Here, you can see both "Active Alerts" and "All Alerts." Alerts related to node health fall under the "infrastructure" alert group. The following screenshot shows alerts indicating high loads on the nodes. Configuring Alert Policies: Alert policies determine the notification process for raised alerts. To set up an alert policy, navigate to Multi-Cloud Network Connect > Alerts Management > Alert Policies. An alert policy consists of two main elements: the alert receiver configuration and the policy rules. Configuring Alert Receiver: The configuration allows for integration with platforms like Slack and PagerDuty, among others, facilitating notifications through commonly used channels. Configuring Alert Rules: For alert selection, we recommend configuring notifications for alerts with severity of “Major” or “Critical” at a minimum. Alternatively, the “infrastructure” group which includes node-based alerts can be selected. Comparison Table Criteria Default Cluster Single Node HA Minimum number of nodes in HA 3 2 Upgrade operations Per cluster Per Node Network redundancy and client side routing for east-west traffic VRRP, BGP, DNS, L4/7 LB DNS, L4/7 LB, BGP* Tunnels to RE 2 tunnels per cluster 2 tunnels per node Tunnels to other CEs (SMG or DCG) 1 tunnel from each cluster 1 tunnel from each node External traffic processing Limited to 2 nodes All nodes will be active Internal traffic processing All nodes can be active All nodes can be active Scale management in Public Cloud Sites Straightforward, by configuring ingress interfaces in Azure/AWS/GCP sites Straightforward, by adding or removing the labels Scale management in Secure Mesh Sites Requires reconfiguring the cluster (secure mesh site) - may cause interruption Straightforward, by adding or removing the labels Custom VIP IP Available Not Available (Planned to be available in future releases), workaround available. Node sizes All nodes should be same size. Upgrading node size in a cluster is a disruptive operation. Any node sizes or clusters can join the Virtual Site * When using BGP, please note a current limitation that prevents configuring custom VIP address on the Virtual Site. Conclusion: F5 Distributed Cloud offers a flexible approach to High Availability (HA) across CE nodes, allowing customers to select the redundancy model that best fits their specific use cases and requirements. While we continue to advocate for default clustering approach due to their operational simplicity and shared VRRP VIP or, unified network configuration benefits, especially for routine tasks like upgrades, the Virtual Site and single node HA model presents some great use cases. It not only addresses the limitations and challenges of the default clustering model, but also introduces a solution that is both scalable and adaptable. While Virtual Sites offer their own benefits, we recognize they also present trade-offs. The overall benefits, particularly for scenarios demanding high ingress (RE to CE) throughput and controlled failover capabilities cater to specific customer demands. The F5 product and development team remains committed to addressing the limitations of both default clustering and Virtual Sites discussed throughout this article. Their focus is on continuous improvement and finding the solutions that best serve our customers' needs. References and Additional Links: Default Clustering model: https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs/ves-concepts/site#cluster-of-nodes Configuration guide for Virtual Sites:https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs/how-to/fleets-vsites/create-virtual-site Routing Options for CEs:https://community.f5.com/kb/technicalarticles/f5-distributed-cloud---customer-edge-site---deployment--routing-options/319435 Configuration guide for DC Clustering Group:https://docs.cloud.f5.com/docs/how-to/advanced-networking/configure-dc-cluster-groupDeploy an Auto-Scaled BIG-IP VE WAF in AWS
Today let’s look at how to create and deploy an auto-scaled BIG-IP Virtual Edition Web Application Firewall by using a Cloud Formation Template (CFT) in AWS. CFTs are simply a quick way to spin up solutions that otherwise, you may have to create manually. The idea behind this CFT is it is going to create BIG-IP VE instances for you. These instances function as a firewall in front of your application. Depending on the limits you specify, when more traffic is going to your application, new instances will launch…and when there is less traffic, instances will terminate. This solution has a few prerequisites: A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with at least two subnets, each in its own availability zone An AWS Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), which serves traffic to the BIG-IP VE instances An SSH key pair which you need to access the instances. I have these already created, so we’ll proceed to deploying the template. You have two choices on how you want to deploy. You can go to the AWS Marketplace and search ‘f5 waf’ or you can go to the F5 Networks GitHub site. GitHub usually has the latest and greatest, so we’ll use that. Click on the f5-aws-cloudformation spot. And then click Supported. And then click solutions/autoscale. Then waf. We scroll down a little bit and click Launch Stack. We click Next at the Select Template screen and fill out the template. When you get to the template, the Deployment Name will be appended to all the instances so you can tell which ones are yours. Since we already set up a VPC with two subnets in two zones (not regions), we’ll select those in the VPC ID field. The Restricted Source Address is available if you only want to allow specific IP addresses to your BIG-IP VE instances. Next is the AWS Elastic Load Balancer name, then choose your SSH key – which is needed to connect to the instances. And we’ll leave the defaults for the rest. Then you’ll get to the Auto Scaling Configuration section which is where you’ll determine when to create the new WAF instances. You’ll want to configure the Scale Up & Scale Down Bytes Threshold which will, obviously, determine when one gets launched/added and when it is removed. Under WAF Virtual Service Configuration, is where you’ll enter the application’s Service Port and DNS. In addition, if you wanted to automatically add application servers to the pool to have traffic will go to those without having to manually configure the BIG-IP, you can also add the Application Pool Tag Values which works great. Next choose your WAF Policy Level (low, medium, high) and click Next and Next. Also, click the check box with indicates that you have the appropriate credentials to set some IAM roles and create a S3 Bucket. Click Create and the CFT will start creating resources. This process can take about 15 minutes to complete and when it is done, you’ll get the CREATE_COMPLETE on your dashboard. The resources might be available right away but it is recommended to wait at least 30 minutes before digging into things. To see what the CFT created and confirm completion, go to: Services>EC2>Auto Scaling Groups. You can see that there is a BIG-IP VE instance created and added to the group. Also, be aware that the default for Scaling Policies is to wait 40 minutes to launch a new instance. You may want to adjust that to your preference. However, to be clear, AWS is always monitoring the traffic and want to know if you are exceeding the limits you’ve set. The Scaling Policies setting simply means that after one instance is launched – you hit the limit and one is up – AWS should wait 40 minutes (or whatever your value is) to launch another. It’ll keep going until you’ve hit the max number of instances specified. We put three. While in Services>EC2, you can also inspect the ELB and see that the BIG-IP VE instance is there and in service. Traffic is going through the Load Balancer and then to the BIG-IP VE, then to the application server. Lastly, let’s look at the list of instances in Services>EC2>Instances and the instances are there and ready to go! And then when there is too much traffic, another is added. Since the limit was exceeded, AWS has launched new instances, up to three. And when the traffic falls, the instance shuts down. That’s it! Easily scale your BIG-IP application security on AWS. Thanks to our TechPubs group and watch the video demo here. psLightboard Lessons: DNS Scalability & Security
The Domain Name Service (DNS) is one of the most important components in networking infrastructure, enabling users and services to access applications by translating URLs (names) into IP addresses (numbers). Because every icon and URL and all embedded content on a website requires a DNS lookup, loading complex sites necessitates hundreds of DNS queries. DNS lookups has exploded in recent years with mobile, IoT and the applications to support the growth. It is also a vulnerable target. In my first Lightboard Lesson, I show you how to scale, secure and consolidate your DNS infrastructure. ps Related: The Dangerous Game of DNS The DNS of Things Is 2016 Half Empty or Half Full?The IoT Ready Platform
Over the last couple months, in between some video coverage for events, I've been writing a series of IoT stories. From the basic What are These "Things”? and IoT Influence on Society to the descriptive IoT Effect on Applications and the IoT Ready Infrastructure. I thought it only fair to share how F5 can play within an IoT infrastructure. Because F5 application services share a common control plane—the F5 platform—we’ve simplified the process of deploying and optimizing IoT application delivery services. With the elastic power of Software Defined Application Services (SDAS), you can rapidly provision IoT application services across the data center and into cloud computing environments, reducing the time and costs associated with deploying new applications and architectures. The beauty of SDAS is that it can provide the global services to direct the IoT devices to the most appropriate data center or hybrid cloud depending on the request, context, and application health. Customers, employees, and the IoT devices themselves receive the most secure and fastest experience possible. F5's high-performance services fabric supports traditional and emerging underlay networks. It can deployed a top traditional IP and VLAN-based networks, works with SDN overlay networks using NVGRE or VXLAN (as well as a variety of less well-known overlay protocols) and integrates with SDN network fabrics such as those from Cisco/Insieme, Arista and BigSwitch among others. Hardware, Software or Cloud The services fabric model enables consolidation of services onto a common platform that can be deployed on hardware, software or in the cloud. This reduces operational overhead by standardizing management as well as deployment processes to support continuous delivery efforts. By sharing service resources and leveraging fine-grained multi-tenancy, the cost of individual services is dramatically reduced, enabling all IoT applications - regardless of size - to take advantage of services that are beneficial to their security, reliability and performance. The F5 platform: Provides the network security to protect against inbound attacks Offloads SSL to improve the performance of the application servers Not only understands the application but also know when it is having problems Ensures not only the best end user experience but also quick and efficient data replication F5 Cloud solutions can automate and orchestrate the deployment of IoT application delivery services across both traditional and cloud infrastructures while also managing the dynamic redirection of workloads to the most suitable location. These application delivery services ensure predictable IoT experiences, replicated security policy, and workload agility. F5 BIG-IQ™ Cloud can federate management of F5 BIG-IP® solutions across both traditional and cloud infrastructures, helping organizations deploy and manage IoT delivery services in a fast, consistent, and repeatable manner, regardless of the underlying infrastructure. In addition, BIG-IQ Cloud integrates or interfaces with existing cloud orchestration engines such as VMware vCloud Director to streamline the overall process of deploying applications. Extend, Scale - and Secure F5 Cloud solutions offer a rapid Application Delivery Network provisioning solution, drastically reducing the lead times for expanding IoT delivery capabilities across data centers, be they private or public. As a result, organizations can efficiently: Extend data centers to the cloud to support IoT deployments Scale IoT applications beyond the data center when required. Secure and accelerate IoT connections to the cloud For maintenance situations, organizations no longer need to manually redirect traffic by configuring applications. Instead, IoT applications are proactively redirected to an alternate data center prior to maintenance. For continuous DDoS protection, F5 Silverline DDoS Protection is a service delivered via the F5 Silverline cloud-based platform that provides detection and mitigation to stop even the largest of volumetric DDoS attacks from reaching your IoT network. The BIG-IP platform is application and location agnostic, meaning the type of application or where the application lives really does not matter. As long as you tell the BIG-IP platform where to find the IoT application, the BIG-IP platform will deliver it. Bringing it all together, F5 Synthesis enables cloud and application providers as well as mobile network operators the architectural framework necessary to ensure the performance, reliability and security of IoT applications. Connected devices are here to stay—forcing us to move forward into this brave new world where almost everything generates data traffic. While there’s much to consider, proactively addressing these challenges and adopting new approaches for enabling an IoT-ready network will help organizations chart a clearer course toward success. An IoT-ready environment enables IT to begin taking advantage of this societal shift without a wholesale rip-and-replace of existing technology. It also provides the breathing room IT needs to ensure that the coming rush of connected devices does not cripple the infrastructure. This process ensures benefits will be realized without compromising on the operational governance required to ensure availability and security of IoT network, data, and application resources. It also means IT can manage IoT services instead than boxes. However an IoT ready infrastructure is constructed, it is a transformational journey for both IT and the business. It is not something that should be taken lightly or without a long-term strategy in place. When done properly, F5-powered IoT ready infrastructure can bring significant benefits to an organization and its people. ps Related: The Digital Dress Code Is IoT Hype For Real? What are These "Things”? IoT Influence on Society IoT Effect on Applications CloudExpo 2014: The DNS of Things Intelligent DNS Animated Whiteboard The Internet of Me, Myself & I Technorati Tags: f5,iot,things,sensors,silverline,big-ip,scale,sdas,synthesis,infrastructure Connect with Peter: Connect with F5:IoT Effect on Applications
As more applications are needed to run those Things, traditional infrastructure concerns like scale and reliability will become paramount. Additional challenges with identity and access, improving the user experience, and the need for faster provisioning of services could overwhelm IT departments. A robust, scalable and intelligent infrastructure will be necessary to handle the massive traffic growth. IT professionals are tasked with designing and building the infrastructure that’s ready for the challenges that lie ahead, including IoT. But many of today’s traditional architectures will buckle under the increasing demand of all the connected devices. According to IDC, the rate at which applications double in the enterprise is every four years. This is likely to be cut in half as more IoT devices need applications supporting them and organizations need to be ready for the deluge. The Domain Name System (DNS) is the most likely method for connected devices to locate needed services, and it’s potentially the means by which people will locate the devices themselves. There might be other schemas in the planning process, but those would require the adoption of a new technology naming standard, which would be costly, slow and highly unlikely. Clearly, security must also be present since Iot has the potential to weave vulnerabilities throughout the system. Unless organizations remain proactive, the ubiquity of connected devices presents a gold mine for attackers. Outpacing attackers in our current threat landscape will require more resources in order to minimize risk. Organizations will need to continue to harden our own infrastructures and look to cloud services like DoS mitigation to lessen the effects of attacks. At the same time, the explosion of embedded devices may well be the event that drives more mainstream IPv6 adoption. There are several advantages to IPv6 such as a large namespace, address self-configuration, and the potential to remove Network Address Translation (NAT) problems. The data center will require some planning to embrace this shift. Components such as routers, firewalls, and application delivery controllers will need to be IPv6-ready, capable of understanding the protocols and data that devices will use to communicate. To ensure security, intelligent routing, and analytics, networking layers will need to be fluent in the language your devices use. Understanding these protocols within the network will allow traffic to be secured, prioritized, and routed accordingly. Recognizing and prioritizing these messages will enable better scale and manageability of the onslaught of device traffic and data. Intelligence will also be needed to categorize what data needs attention (like a health monitor alert) and what doesn’t (temperature is good). According to TechTarget, to ensure high availability of IoT services, enterprises must consider boosting traffic management and monitoring. This will both mitigate business continuity risks, and prevent potential losses. From a project planning standpoint, organizations need to do capacity planning and watch the growth rate of the network so that the increased demand for the required bandwidth can be met. ps Related The Digital Dress Code Is IoT Hype For Real? What are These "Things”? IoT Influence on Society CloudExpo 2014: The DNS of Things Intelligent DNS Animated Whiteboard The Internet of Me, Myself & I Technorati Tags: devices,f5,iot,m2m,security,sensors,silva,things,wearables,dns,applicatons Connect with Peter: Connect with F5:
Synthesis has expanded: What does this mean for service providers?
In recent blog posts by my colleague Lenny Burakovsky, the issues facing service providers (SPs) around mobile security were discussed. It’s something we’re speaking to operators about a lot as we help them figure out how to address the inherent security weaknesses in 4G networks. F5 followers will know that at the end of last year we announced our new Synthesis architecture, to promote the delivery and orchestration of software defined application services (SDAS) throughout data centre, cloud, and hybrid environments. While the challenges they’re facing aren’t dissimilar to those faced by businesses in other industries who have to deliver applications to users quickly and securely, service providers clearly have very specific needs, extremely demanding end users and operate in a rapidly changing market. So, just before Mobile World Congress starts, we were excited to announce that the benefits of Synthesis were being expanded specifically for service providers, focusing on enabling operators to optimise, secure and monetise services. What does this mean? Firstly, security is key. There are several reasons why security is weaker on LTE / 4G networks and I would suggest watching this video which explains why the network is facing scrutiny over security concerns. As F5’s research showed, if security isn’t improved quickly consumers will lose trust in their service providers and are at risk of leaving for an alternative provider. Annoyed customers equals lost customers equals lost revenues, so it’s a pressing issue, particularly when operators are spending billions on next generation networks. Synthesis is designed to protect end-user devices, networks, and cloud deployments with industry-leading performance and scale. It offers dynamic, intelligent security which is implemented at the network, session, and application layers, to give service providers a scalable and transparent solution. However, although security is extremely important, this is about more than just securing apps. The expansion of our architecture will enable SPs to optimise service offerings that generate new and enhanced revenue streams. For example, the Synthesis expansion will unleash broadband services for optimum performance. This will be done by giving providers an intelligent service chaining, dynamic policy enforcement, Diameter routing and interworking, and DNS functionality, which will drive performance levels and make for happy consumers. Another benefit will be the delivery of future-proof scale and extensibility for ultimate value. We will give organisations a multi-service platform that provides important network services, such as security, policy enforcement, local DNS, IPv6 migration, and content filtering, with additional granular control over traffic policies and steering provided by programmable iRules capabilities, which is an unrivalled offering. Importantly, the developments will also provide integration points with an ecosystem of technology partners. We pride ourselves on our seamless integration with technology partners in the next-generation service provider ecosystem, allowing us to fit in with the customer’s needs and allow for collaboration and joint offerings. So, as SPs expand the breadth of their offerings, and cater for increasingly demanding consumers using more data and more advanced devices, it's imperative that they can orchestrate many disparate services into a seamless delivery network. We can help them do this.
