How to: Create a VELOS BIG-IP Next HA instance from BIG-IP Next Central Manager

Overview

Create a BIG-IP Next HA instance to manage and safeguard your applications and traffic in the event there is an issue with the provider the BIG-IP Next is installed on. If there is an issue, BIG-IP Next Central Manager will failover from the active BIG-IP Next HA node to the standby node with no disruption to current traffic or applications.

Prerequisites

Before you can create a BIG-IP Next HA instance, you’ll need the following:

Important: All CIDR IP addresses must be unique and in IPv4 format and the interfaces must be the same on both BIG-IP Next instances from which you are creating a BIG-IP Next HA instance.

Procedure

Use this procedure to create BIG-IP Next HA Instance using Central Manager GUI:

  1. Log in to BIG-IP Next Central Manager as admin, click the Workspace icon next to the F5 logo, and click Infrastructure.

  2. In the Mode column, click the Standalone link for the BIG-IP Next instance you want to become the active node in the BIG-IP Next HA instance.

  3. Click the Enable HA button.
    The HA Nodes panel opens.

  4. From the Available Standalone Instances list, select the BIG-IP Next VELOS instance you want to be the standby node in this BIG-IP Next HA instance, and click Next. The HA VLANs panel opens.

  5. From the Control Plane VLAN list, select the VLAN created on VELOS to use for HA traffic related to management tasks such as health, logging, and alerts.
    Alternatively, you can click Create VLAN to create a new control plane VLAN and select an available Tag number based on the future active and standby node for the BIG-IP Next HA instance.

  6. From the Data Plane VLAN list, select the VLAN you created on VELOS to use for HA traffic related to data processing between the nodes in the BIG-IP Next instance you’re creating.
    Alternatively, you can click Create VLAN to create a new control plane VLAN, select an available Tag number based on the future active and standby node for the BIG-IP Next HA instance, and specify the Network Interface.

  7. Click the Next button.

  8. Specify a name for this BIG-IP Next HA instance.

  9. Enter the HA Management (Floating) IP Address, ensuring it belongs to the same subnet as the Management network IP address.
    This enables failover to the standby node and acts as a floating management IP, regardless of which node is active in the high availability setup.

  10. To prompt BIG-IP Next Central Manager to automatically failback to the previously active node when it becomes available after automatic failover, select the Enable Auto Failback checkbox.

  11. Enter the Control Plane and Data Plane IP addresses by selecting two different subnets that are different from the Management network. These IP addresses will enable communication between active and standby nodes. The CIDR must be unique for each IP address and must use the same interface.

  12. Click Next. The Traffic VLANs panel opens and displays the VLANs you specified for traffic.
    You can have only one IP address for each active and standby node, but you can add additional floating IP addresses by clicking on the VLAN name.

  13. Click each VLAN to open a panel to add the respective Active, Standby, and Floating IP addresses.
    When each VLAN displays a green check mark, you can proceed.

  14. Click Next.
    The Summary screen opens to display the BIG-IP Next HA configuration you specified.

  15. Click Deploy to HA and click Yes Deploy.

Use this procedure to create BIG-IP Next HA Instance using Central Manager APIs:

  1. Get Instance details by sending a GET request to /spaces/default/instances endpoint. Identify the ID of the instance that you want to upgrade.

    GET https://{{CM_IP}}/api/v1/spaces/default/instances?filter=address eq '{{bigip_next_mgmt_ip}}'

  2. Create a HA Pair for BIG-IP Next Instance by sending the POST request to the /spaces/default/instances/<remote-Big-IP-Next-ID>/ha endpoint.

    POST https://{{CM_IP}/api/v1/spaces/default/instances/<remote-Big-IP-Next-ID>/ha

    For the request payload, use the following example, modifying the values as required.

    {
    "auto_failback": false,
    "cluster_management_ip": "1.2.3.4",
    "cluster_name": "eq-next-ha",
    "standby_instance_id": "a8180470-b9df-4c37-84d5-87fac5b5bdd2",
    "control_plane_vlan": {
        "name": "ha-cp-vlan",
        "tag": 0
    },
    "data_plane_vlan": {
        "name": "ha-dp-vlan",
        "tag": 0,
        "networkInterface": "1.3"
    },
    "traffic_vlan": [
        {
            "name": "internal",
            "networkName": "internal",
            "selfIps": [
                {
                    "address": "10.2.2.3/24",
                    "instanceName": "FLOATING-IP"
                },
                {
                    "address": "10.2.2.4/24",
                    "instanceName": "ACTIVE-NODE"
                },
                {
                    "address": "10.2.2.4/24",
                    "instanceName": "STANDBY-NODE"
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "external",
            "networkName": "external",
            "selfIps": [
                {
                    "address": "10.1.2.3/24",
                    "instanceName": "FLOATING-IP"
                },
                {
                    "address": "10.1.2.4/24",
                    "instanceName": "ACTIVE-NODE"
                },
                {
                    "address": "10.1.2.5/24",
                    "instanceName": "STANDBY-NODE"
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "nodes": [
        {
            "name": "node1",
            "control_plane_address": "10.1.12.1/24",
            "data_plane_primary_address": "10.1.13.1/24"
        },
        {
            "name": "node2",
            "control_plane_address": "10.1.12.2/24",
            "data_plane_primary_address": "10.1.13.2/24"
        }
    ]
}

Result

BIG-IP Next Central Manager converts the standalone BIG-IP Next instance to a BIG-IP Next HA instance consisting of an active and standby node.