F5 DNS Load Balancer Cloud Service - UI

In this section we will use the F5 Cloud Services UI to set up the Load Balancer DNS record, add endpoints for our Auction app, add health checks, load balanced pools, and run through a few configuration options.

Create F5 DNS Load Balancer Cloud Service

Let’s now create DNS Load Balancer Service to be able to balance loads across multiple clouds (Azure & AWS) and provide global availability and performance with health-check and built-in DDoS protection.

1. Go to the DNS Load Balancer tab and click Configure Service.

   

2. Enter name of the zone we created before and select the default option for “Assign to division” click Save. You will stay on this same page in the UI, but the Changes Pending message will be gone now that you’ve saved it.

   
   

   Click on the DNS Load Balancer tab and you will see your instance on the list but in Inactive status. You can change the status after creating load balanced record and pool.

   

Add Single Endpoint, Health Monitor, Pool and Default Geoproximity Rule

1. Create a Region

   Creating regions will allow grouping incoming requests by geographic areas and directing them to specific pools.

   1. Click on DNS Load Balancer instance which we have just created and go to the Regions tab. Click Create and then select the Region option.

      

   2. Fill “usa” as “Region name” and select “North America” in “Include these continents”. Save the created region.

      

   Now all requests from North America will be covered by the “usa” region.

2. Add A Health Monitor

   To distribute the load, DNS Load Balancer will need to monitor health of each IP Endpoint. So, let’s create a monitor.

   1. Go to the Monitors tab and then click Create and then select the Monitors option.

      

   2. Fill in “health-monitor” for the name, choose “HTTP Standard” protocol, indicate “80” port and click Save.

      

3. Add an IP Endpoint (NA) with Health Check

   Let’s now create an IP endpoint that will currently service all incoming requests. DNS Load Balancer chooses an IP endpoint based on request origin and configuration of IP endpoints, as well as IP Endpoint health.

   1. Go to the IP endpoints tab and then click Create and then select the IP Endpoint option.

      

   2. Fill in name (“na1-auction”), IP address (“34.229.48.248”), port (“80”) and select the monitor we created above and click Save.

      

4. Create a Pool

   Let’s now create a pool and add a member to it.

   1. Go to the Pools tab and then click Create and then select the Pool option.

      

   2. Fill in “america” for the name, and leave the default record type to “A”, load balancing method of “round-robin” method and TTL of “30”. Then click Next.

      

   3. Click Add Member to add an IP Endpoint to the pool.

      

   4. Select the endpoint we’ve just created, as well as the monitor. Click Add and Create and the close the pop up window.

      

   A newly created pool with the one NA endpoint will appear on the list.

5. Add a Load Balanced Record

   After creating all the components (IP endpoint, Pool, Region and Monitor), we can create a DNS Load Balancer record and its proximity rule.

   1. Go to the Load balanced records tab and then click Create and then select the Load Balanced Record option.

      

   2. Fill in LBR name “auction”, Add host/alias “auction”, select “A” as “Resource Record Type” and untick the “Enable Response Caching” box. Set a proximity rule (“Anywhere” -> “america” pool) to direct requests from anywhere to “america” pool with the created NA1 endpoint. Leave the default value for the proximity rule to be “1”. This will define the priority of the rule after some more are added.

      Click Add Rule, then check *Enabled* tick and Save the record.

      

   3. Go back to the DNS Load Balancer tab, tick the box next to your service and click Save and you will see the “Changes staged” message go away. Then click Activate.

      

   The DNS Load Balancer service is now setup.

   

6. Test via Browser

   Let’s test the created service with the proximity rule via browser.

   1. Open FQDN (“auction.{{zone name}}” where {{zone name}} is the value copied from postman in one of the step above) in your browser. You will see that acc to the proximity rule, you joined an endpoint belonging to the “america” pool.

      

7. Test via Command Prompt

   Another way to test the new proximity rule is via Command Prompt.

   1. Start Command Prompt.

      

   2. Paste the following command to the Command Prompt: nslookup auction.”your FQDN name” ns1.f5cloudservices.com and press Enter. Note that we are specifying the nameserver we want to query (ns1.f5cloudservices.com) so that an upstream resolver cache does not affect our expected results.

      

   And you will see 34.229.48.248 IP in the response which belongs to na1-auction endpoint from america pool.

Add Multiple Endpoints to Load Balanced Pool & Test

1. Add More Endpoints (NA2,3)

   Let’s now add a few more endpoints for load balancing of the application. Note that NA2 endpoint is deployed on Amazon AWS, whereas NA3 is running on Microsoft Azure.

   1. Go back to the F5 Cloud Services portal, the DNS Load Balancer service, the IP endpoints tab and select Create and select the IP endpoints option.

      

   2. Fill in name (“na2-auction”), IP address (“18.232.64.254”), port (“80”) and select the monitor we created above.

      

      Check the box to Save and create another create one more endpoint repeating the step above using the following properties: “na3-auction” for name, “52.249.252.91” for IP address, “80” for port and the monitor we created above. You will have three endpoints as a result.

      

2. Add the Endpoints to the Pool

   Let’s now add the newly created endpoints to the existing pool.

   1. Go to the Pools tab and click on the america pool.

      

   2. Click Add Member and select the “na2-auction” endpoint and the monitor we created above to be added. Check the box to Save and create another and click Add

      

      Add the “”na3-auction” endpoint uncheck the box to Save and create another and click Add. Now all three endpoints belong to one pool:

      

   3. Click Save to return to the Pools tab. Notice that there is a message that “Changes staged” so click Save on more time on this screen.

3. Test via Command Prompt

   The best way to test the Round Robin load balancing is via the Command Prompt.

   1. Start Command Prompt.

      

   2. Paste the following command to the Command Prompt: nslookup auction.”your FQDN name” ns1.f5cloudservices.com and press Enter. Note that we are specifying the nameserver we want to query (ns1.f5cloudservices.com) so that an upstream resolver cache does not affect our expected results.

      

   And you should see the IPs of the various end points the response which belongs to the america pool.

Add Europe Region & EU Endpoint with Corresponding Geoproximity Record

1. Add EU Endpoint

   Let’s now add a EU endpoint which is deployed on Amazon AWS.

   1. Go back to the F5 Cloud Services portal, the DNS Load Balancer service, the IP Endpoints tab and select Create and then the IP Endpoints option.

      

   2. Fill in name (“eu-auction”), IP address (“3.122.191.227”), port (“80”) and select the monitor we’ve created above.

      

      The new endpoint will appear on the list.

2. Add EU Region

   Creating EU region will allow grouping requests coming from the European region and directing them to a specific pool.

   1. Go to the Regions tab and click Create and select the Region option.

      

   2. Fill “europe” as “Region name” and select “Europe” in “Include these continents”. Click Save to create region.

      

   Now you have two regions created.

3. Add EU Pool

   Let’s now create a pool and add a member to it.

   1. Go to the Pools tab and then click Create and select the Pool option.

      

   2. Fill in “europe” name, leave the default for record type, load balancing method and TTL. Then click Next.

      

   3. Click Add Member to add an IP Endpoint to the pool.

      

   4. Select the endpoint we’ve just created, as well as the monitor. Click Add and Create and then close the pop up window.

      

      A newly created pool with one EU endpoint will appear on the list.

4. Update LB Record Europe -> “europe”

   Now that we have created EU pool, region and endpoint, we can update load balanced record and add a new proximity rule: to send the traffic originating in Europe to the “europe” pool, utilizing a higher relative score than the previous rule of routing traffic from “Anywhere” to the “america” pool. This type of geo-proximity based routing is useful for GDPR compliance.

   Go to the Load balanced records tab and click on your record. Set a new proximity rule (“europe” -> “europe” pool). Set the score of the proximity rule to be “50”.

   

   Click Add Rule and Save the record. The new proximity rule will direct requests from Europe region to europe pool.

   Clicek Save again to ensure the staged changes are applied.

5. Test using the Opera Browser

   Now let’s test the new proximity rule. This can be done either via the Opera browser or via your computer’s Command Prompt (see the next section).

   1. Open the Opera browser, copy FQDN name (“auction.”your zone name””) and paste into your browser. You will get to one of three available IP endpoints of the “america” pool.

      

   2. Let’s now test the EU proximity rule. Click VPN and select Europe. This will simulate your entering BuyTime Website from Europe.

      

   3. Update your “auction.”zone name”” page to see that acc to the proximity rule, you switched to the European pool.

      

Duplicate Load Balanced Record using JSON through the UI

Let’s now duplicate a load balanced record and its configuration in the existing Load-balancing service via the F5 Cloud Services portal. To do that, follow the step below:

1. Get JSON

   Go to the DNS Load Balancer tab in the portal and click on your existing Load-balancing service. Open the JSON configuration tab and copy it.

   

2. Create New Load Balanced Service

   Let’s now create a new Load-balancing service via UI to copy the record to. To do that, you will first need to get “zone2”.

   1. Go back to Postman and open Get DNS Zone(lab) request. Copy “zone2” which is returned in its response.

      

   2. Open any text editor (say, Notepad) and paste the JSON configuration. Replace the existing zone name with the “zone2” copied from the Postman in the step above:

      

      A new JSON configuration with the properties copied from the existing zone is ready.

   3. Return to the F5 Cloud Services portal and open the DNS Load Balancer tab. Click Configure Service.

      

      Paste “zone2” name which you copied in step 1 above and click Create.

      

3. Update JSON

   Уou have just created a new Load-balancing service. Let’s configure it by duplicating the Load balanced record from the existing service.

   Click on your newly created service and open the JSON configuration tab. Paste the JSON which you created in step b) 2. above and click Save.

   

   Go back to the newly created Load-balancing service to see the newly created record which is the copy of the original one.

4. Go back to the DNS Load Balancer tab and activate the new DNS Load Balancer service by selecting Activate button:

   

   Status will be updated a few seconds later.

5. Test via Browser

   1. Open FQDN (“auction.{{zone-2 name}}” where {{zone-2 name}} is the value copied from postman in one of the step above) in your browser.

      

   2. You will see that acc to the proximity rule and pool members, you will get to endpoints belonging to the closest pool in a round-robin manner.

      

Delete DNS Load Balancer Service

1. Go back to the F5 Cloud Services portal, the DNS Load Balancer tab, and click on your load-balancing service.

   

2. Tick the records and click Delete, then confirm your choice.