Lab 3: Software Installation Jobs - Orchestrating Fleet Upgrades

Overview

In this lab, you will create and execute a Software Installation Job in F5 Insight. Software installation jobs install and activate staged software images on target instances across your fleet. You will learn how F5 Insight orchestrates upgrades for both High Availability (HA) pairs and Standalone instances while ensuring zero or minimal traffic disruption.

Objectives

  • Understand the differences between HA Pair and Standalone installation job types.
  • Configure an HA Pair installation job with automated failover and Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) pauses.
  • Configure a Standalone installation job using Serial (Rolling) or Parallel (Batch) execution.
  • Execute, monitor, pause, resume, or abort an active installation job.
  • Verify post-installation software version activation and instance metadata refresh.

Prerequisites

  • Completion of Lab 2: Software Distribution Jobs.
  • Target BIG-IP instances with the TMOS ISO image already staged on disk.
  • Target HA pair: ha-pair-01a.lab.local (Active) and ha-pair-01b.lab.local (Standby).
  • Target Standalone instances: bigip-01.lab.local and bigip-02.lab.local.

Task 1: Understanding Installation Job Types

F5 Insight provides specialized installation job types tailored to your architecture:

Installation Job Types
Job Type Execution Flow Traffic Impact
HA Pair Upgrades Standby instance first -> Verifies health -> Performs controlled failover -> Upgrades formerly Active instance -> Verifies health. Zero Downtime: Traffic flows through the Active instance throughout the entire operation.
Standalone (Serial) Installs each standalone BIG-IP one at a time sequentially. Individual instance reboot required during volume activation.
Standalone (Parallel) Installs multiple standalone BIG-IPs simultaneously in defined batch sizes. Concurrent reboot across batch members; ideal for load-balanced pools.

Task 2: Creating an HA Pair Software Installation Job

  1. Log into F5 Insight and navigate to Manage > Automation > Jobs.

  2. Click Add Job and select Software Installation.

  3. In the Job Name field, enter:

    Install_TMOS_17.1.1_HA_Pair_01

  4. Select HA Pair as the installation job type.

  5. Select the target HA pair: ha-pair-01a.lab.local / ha-pair-01b.lab.local.

  6. Select the target software image: BIGIP-17.1.1-0.0.6.iso.

  7. Under Target Volume, select an available volume location (e.g., HD1.2).

Task 3: Configuring Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) Pauses

HITL pauses give administrators explicit control to review health metrics before allowing automated failover or proceeding with the second node.

  1. Enable Pause points in the job configuration: * Pause after Standby installation: Halts execution after ha-pair-01b is upgraded, allowing manual health validation before failover. * Pause before failover: Pauses immediately prior to issuing the HA failover command.
  2. Click Save to save the job definition or click Execute Job to initiate.
  3. In the confirmation pop-up, enter Change Request CR-98422-INSTALL-HA and click Execute Job.

Task 4: Monitoring HA Upgrade Workflow and Pauses

  1. Navigate to Manage > Automation > Jobs and click on the executing job.
  2. Watch F5 Insight execute the 5-stage HA workflow: * Stage 1: Identifies ha-pair-01a as Active and ha-pair-01b as Standby. * Stage 2: Installs software on Standby (ha-pair-01b) and reboots into new volume HD1.2. * Stage 3: Job enters Paused (HITL) state.
  3. Review Standby node metrics, then click Resume Job.
  4. F5 Insight performs failover (making ha-pair-01b Active) and proceeds to upgrade ha-pair-01a.
  5. Once complete, verify both nodes report healthy status on TMOS version 17.1.1.

Task 5: Creating a Standalone Installation Job (Serial or Parallel)

For independent instances not configured in HA:

  1. Click Add Job > Software Installation.
  2. Name the job Install_TMOS_17.1.1_Standalone_Fleet.
  3. Select Standalone as the job type.
  4. Select target instances bigip-01.lab.local and bigip-02.lab.local.
  5. Choose execution mode: * Serial (Rolling): Upgrades bigip-01 completely before starting bigip-02. * Parallel (Batch): Enter Batch Size 2 to upgrade both simultaneously.
  6. Click Execute Job and confirm execution.

Task 6: Post-Installation Verification and Metadata Refresh

  1. After the installation job completes, F5 Insight automatically triggers an instance metadata refresh to update its inventory database.
  2. To manually trigger a metadata refresh via API or UI: * Navigate to Manage > Devices. * Select the upgraded instances and click Refresh Metadata.
  3. Verify that the Software Version column for all updated instances reflects 17.1.1.

Verification Checkpoint

  • Confirm the installation job state shows Completed Successfully.
  • Confirm ha-pair-01a.lab.local and ha-pair-01b.lab.local are running TMOS 17.1.1 in HA synchronized state.
  • Confirm standalone instances reflect TMOS 17.1.1.

Go to Ticket 04 - Review Connection Count Standard Deviation

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