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Module 5: LTM conflict resolution: silo in BIG-IQ (new 7.1)¶
BIG-IP configuration naming conventions are not consistent within many customer environments. It is common to find similar names reused across different BIG-IP’s for shared configuration objects such as Profiles, Monitors etc….
When shared objects have the same name but different configurations this creates a conflict within the centralized management system, and BIG-IQ will raise an error and fail to import the BIG-IP device. In previous releases you could either choose to override and rewrite what was on the BIG-IP being imported with the configuration that was already in BIG-IQ, or you could override the configuration that was in BIG-IQ with the newly imported BIG-IP’s configuration. Overwriting the shared object that is already in the BIG-IQ’s database would have consequences of affecting other devices utilizing the same shared object as their configuration would be changed on the next deployment. Most customers would choose not to import the device until they could manually fix the object name collision by giving the offending profile or monitor a new name. This process was time consuming and cumbersome and had to be done on BIG-IP directly.
Starting with BIG-IQ 7.1, you can now import devices with object naming collisions into a temporary “silo” on BIG-IQ. Think of this as a quarantine area that doesn’t impact the rest of BIG-IQ or overwrite shared objects which may have different configurations on other BIG-IP’s. This will allow you to rename the configuration objects on BIG-IP using BIG-IQ. Once all of the conflicting objects that need to remain unique have been renamed, the device can be re-imported fully into BIG-IQ without the need for a silo.
In this lab, Seattle and Boston BIG-IP devices were imported first, and they have a
common shared object named silo-lab-http-profile. Since both devices profiles have
the same name and the same configuration within that profile they are imported into
the default silo. Any update to that shared profile would be pushed out to all
devices that share the profile of the same name.
The San Jose BIG-IP device fails import due to a naming collision because of a
profile named silo-lab-http-profile (same name) but has different configuration
items within the profile. If you want to keep the different configuration items
for this device, you can now import it into its own temporary silo to avoid conflict.
You may then review the configuration differences from BIG-IQ, and push out naming changes
to resolve the conflict. The device can then be re-imported into BIG-IQ’s default silo because
the naming conflict will have been removed.
Official documentation about Silo feature can be found on the BIG-IQ Knowledge Center.