BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes (LA)

The BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes solution consists primarily of two components, the Data Plane - Traffic Management Micro-kernel (TMM) and the Control Plane, which monitors the state of the Kubernetes cluster and updates the TMM’s configuration. The BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes Data Plane (TMM) handles the provisioning of network traffic both entering and exiting the Kubernetes cluster and proxy the traffic to applications running in the Kubernetes cluster.

The Data Plane (TMM) runs on the BlueField-3 Data Processing Unit (DPU) node fully utilizing the DPU resources to hardware offload the traffic and freeing up the Host (CPU) for Applications. The Control Plane can operate on the Host (CPU) or other nodes within the Kubernetes cluster, ensuring that the DPU remains dedicated to traffic processing.

F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes on NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs Architectural Overview

This documentation will help you setup and install F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes on a platform with an NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs.

The NVIDIA DOCA Framework enables rapidly creating and managing applications and services on top of the BlueField networking platform, using industry-standard APIs. For more information on DOCA, see NVIDIA DOCA Overview.