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Manual Chapter : What factors should I consider before installing BIG-IQ software?

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Centralized Management

  • 8.3.0, 8.2.0, 8.1.0, 8.0.0
Manual Chapter

What factors should I consider before installing BIG-IQ software?

Before you install a BIG-IQ® system you should make sure of a couple things about the virtual disk on which your BIG-IQ system resides, so that all goes as planned when you install your software.

Questions to ask before you install

Do you have enough disk space on the BIG-IQ VE to install the BIG-IQ software?
Before you create new slots and size them appropriately, check whether there is sufficient physical disk space on the VE. For details on evaluating your free disk space, refer to
What disk size tasks should I perform before an upgrade?
 on
support.f5.com
.
How big are the volumes needed by the software you want to install?
The two base BIG-IQ VE sizes that you can install yield a physical disk space of either 95 or 500 Gb. However, it you plan to use more than 95 Gb of that disk space, you need to allocate that space to the volumes you plan to use.

Determining the correct volume sizes for your new BIG-IQ installation

When you install BIG-IQ VE, you need to know how big the volumes should be to handle the amount of data you intend to store. The volume size requirements can vary significantly, depending on how you use the BIG-IQ system.
If you are installing a BIG-IQ system, the volume sizes you need also depend on how you plan to manage your BIG-IP devices and how many you plan to manage.
  • The
    /var
     volume is used to store BIG-IQ local databases. In a typical system managing 600 BIG-IP devices, you can expect about 20 Gb total disk space used. This size can vary greatly depending on the services discovered and type of objects being managed. Snapshots are stored in this volume, so if you schedule a lot of snapshots, your requirements will increase. For our scale testing, we found that 50Gb was sufficient. If you schedule a large number of snapshots, that need could increase to 100Gb.
  • The
    /shared
     volume is used to store the backups; both for the BIG-IP devices you manage and the BIG-IQ itself. Larger amounts of disk space can be needed here, depending on how many devices you manage, how often they are backed up, and how many of these backups you opt to retain. You can specify how many backups you want to keep for each managed device. The storage auto-purges older backups if that number is exceeded. This feature can help prevent you from accidentally exhausting the available disk space. For our scale testing, we found that 300Gb was sufficient for managing 600 BIG-IP devices. 100Gb was sufficient for managing 200 BIG-IP devices or less. To err on the side of caution, 300Gb is a good guideline.
If you are installing a DCD, the volume sizes you need depend on the number of BIG-IP devices you are collecting data for, as well as the number of DCDs in your cluster. Refer to the
F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management DCD Sizing Guide
 for additional detail.

Download disk size tools

F5 has created several scripts that are useful if you need to resize your disk volumes as part of the upgrade process.
  • On a BIG-IQ system or DCD with version 6.0 or later installed, these scripts are available in the
    /usr/bin
     folder. Because this folder is already in your path definition, you can use these scripts directly.
  • To use these scripts with BIG-IQ systems or DCDs running version 8.0.0, you must first download them. Complete the following steps to download these scripts.
  1. Log in to
    downloads.f5.com
    .
  2. Navigate to BIG-IQ Centralized Management, look for the BIQ-IQ release you are working with, and click
    I Accept
     to accept the EULA.
  3. Click
    F5_Networks_Disk_Size_Tools.tar
    .
    After a brief pause, the Download Locations screen opens.
  4. Click a download location to start the download.
  5. When the download completes, extract the contents of the archive.
    Three files will extract:
    • addvol
    • imageplan
    • resizevol
Before you can run these scripts, you need to copy them to the
/usr/bin
 folder of the device you are resizing.

Create correctly sized volumes

Before you create correctly sized volumes you need to:
  • Download the
    resizevol
     script from
    F5.downloads.com
    . For details on downloading this script, refer to
    Downloading disk size tools
     on
    support.f5.com
    .
  • Know the volume names that you want to extend, and the size that you want to extend them to.
If you need to increase the volume size of a disk volume, you can use the
resizevol
 script.
  1. Use SSH to log in to your BIG-IQ as
    root
    .
  2. Use the
    resizevol
     script to increase size of the volume on the new installation slot to the required size.
    The volume sizes required depend on a number of factors. See
    What volume sizes should I use?
     on
    support.f5.com
     for details.
    Here is an example of the
    resizevol
     script being used to resize the
    /var
     volume to 30 GB.
    
# 
    ./resizevol /var 30000000
    
Requested size 30000000k is less than current size 30003200.00k on /dev/vg-db-sda/set.1._var, skipping
Resizing logical volumes. OK (y/n)? y
Requested size 30000000k is less than current size 30003200.00k, skipping
e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
set.2./var: 11/655360 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 79696/2621440 blocks
  Rounding size to boundary between physical extents: 28.61 GiB
  Extending logical volume set.2._var to 28.61 GiB
  Logical volume set.2._var successfully resized
resize2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Resizing the filesystem on /dev/vg-db-sda/set.2._var to 7500800 (4k) blocks.
The filesystem on /dev/vg-db-sda/set.2._var is now 7500800 blocks long.
# lvs --unit=k
  LV            VG        Attr      LSize        Pool Origin Data%  Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert
  dat.log.1     vg-db-sda -wi-ao---  7168000.00k
  dat.maint.1   vg-db-sda -wi-a----   307200.00k
  dat.share.1   vg-db-sda -wi-ao--- 10240000.00k
  dat.swapvol.1 vg-db-sda -wi-ao---  1048576.00k
  set.1._config vg-db-sda -wi-ao---   503808.00k
  set.1._usr    vg-db-sda -wi-ao---  3452928.00k
  set.1._var    vg-db-sda -wi-ao--- 30003200.00k
  set.1.root    vg-db-sda -wi-ao---   450560.00k
  set.2._config vg-db-sda -wi-a----  3321856.00k
  set.2._usr    vg-db-sda -wi-a----  3452928.00k
  set.2._var    vg-db-sda -wi-a---- 30003200.00k
  set.2.root    vg-db-sda -wi-a----   450560.00k
    The script extends the size of the volume you identify (
    /var
     in this example) to the size you enter (30GB in this example).
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