Lab 4.3: Review our SSG deployment in AWS

AWS configuration review

Connect to your AWS Console to review what has been created already (the AWS console URL, login, password are in the Cloud Accounts tab if using lab environment).

Go to Services > CloudFormation

Here you can see that 4 AWS Stacks have been deployed:

• <YOUR PREFIX>-vpc-elb-cf-stackThis stack deploys a new VPC called <YOUR PREFIX>-vpc.

  We use this new VPC to avoid any conflict and ensure we won’t disrupt anything. We will create the subnets, security groups and an ELB called <YOUR PREFIX>-elb that can be used to deploy an App later

• <YOUR PREFIX>-vpn-cf-stackThis stack depoys the VPN configuration in AWS. We

  use this VPN to send data back to BIG-IQ DCDs.

• <YOUR PREFIX>-ubuntu-cf-stackThis stack deploys an ubuntu instance that will behave

  as our app

• <YOUR PREFIX>-aws-ssgthis will create the AWS autoscale deploymentlaunch

  configuration, auto scaling groups, …

Those stacks were deployed from our system called Ubuntu Lamp Server. If you want to review those stacks, connect to this system and go to :

f5student@xjumpbox:~/$ cd f5-aws-vpn-ssg/cft/
f5student@xjumpbox:~/f5-aws-vpn-ssg$ ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 f5 f5 7148 May  3 06:49 Servers-Setup.template
-rw-r--r-- 1 f5 f5 5367 Jun 11 00:27 Setup-Ubuntu.template
-rw-r--r-- 1 f5 f5 8425 May  9 11:02 Setup-VPC.template
-rw-r--r-- 1 f5 f5 2642 May  9 08:33 Setup-VPN.template

Take some time to review the different things setup in your own VPC.

BIG-IQ SSG configuration review

Connect to the BIG-IQ UI and go to Devices > Device Templates. You should see a new device template called <your PREFIX>-aws-device-template

Click on this new device template to review its configuration. You’ll see that only NTP and User Accounts have been setup.

Note

the admin password used here is <it’s in your config.yml file, BIGIP_PWD ATTRIBUTE>

Note

DNS server shouldn’t be set in the device template

Next, you may go to Applications > Environments > Cloud Providers. You will see a new Cloud Providers called <YOUR prefix>-aws-provider:

Click on this new cloud provider. You’ll see that it contains your AWS Access Key and your AWS Secret Access Key.

Click on the Test button when you need to make sure your credentials are fine.

Go to Applications > Environments > Cloud Environments. Click on your cloud environment called <YOUR PREFIX>-aws-environment

You will be able to retrieve a lot of the information that were defined in the config.yml file:

• Region
• AZ
• SSH Key Name
• License type
• AMI
• BIG-IQ information

…

Go to Applications > Environments > Service Scaling Groups. Click on your SSG called <YOUR PREFIX>-MENANT-aws-ssg

Go to Configuration > Devices. You’ll be able to see your two provisioned BIG-IPs`

Click on one of your BIG-IP to open its GUI in a new tab.

• Login: admin
• Password: <it’s in your config.yml file, BIGIP_PWD ATTRIBUTE>

SSG BIG-IP configuration review

Once you’re logged in your BIG-IP, you can see a few things:

• it’s offically managed by BIG-IQ
• it’s in SYNC. Our BIG-IPs part of a SSG deployed in AWS will be setup as a cluster

Go to Device Management > Overview

You can see that Auto Sync is enabled for a Device Group called autoscale-group.

Let’s deploy an application to see how it is setup on our different components (AWS ELB, BIG-IPs in the SSG).