Manual Chapter :
About conflict management when importing services
Applies To:
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BIG-IQ Centralized Management
- 8.4.0
About conflict management when importing services
When BIG-IQ manages a BIG-IP device, it stores a copy of that device's service configuration objects. BIG-IQ uses the following terms to describe object configuration settings on your BIG-IQ and BIG-IP devices:
- Working configurationis the BIG-IP service configuration located on BIG-IQ. This is the configuration you manage, edit, and deploy to your managed BIG-IP devices.
- Current configurationis the BIG-IP service configuration running on a BIG-IP device, which can be different than the working configuration on BIG-IQ if changes were made directly on that BIG-IP device.
When importing a BIG-IP device's services, BIG-IQ compares the objects in its working configuration to the objects in the BIG-IP device's current configuration. If BIG-IQ finds the same type of object with the same name but different parameters, it notifies you of the conflict. For example, a conflict would occur if the policy object
Pol021
in the current configuration (imported from the BIG-IP device) contains more properties than the policy object in the working configuration on BIG-IQ.There are three types of objects that can cause conflicts when importing a BIG-IP device's services.
- Shared - All objects shared across BIG-IP devices, such as LTM profiles and monitors, Security policies for ASM, AFM, and APM.
- Shared version-specific - Only LTM profile and monitor objects that are specific to a BIG-IP software version.
- Device-specific - Objects that are specific to a particular BIG-IP device and are not shared among BIG-IP devices. These are objects that have been modified directly on the BIG-IP (not recommended) rather than deployed from BIG-IQ.
When importing a BIG-IP device's services, you must resolve any conflicts found between the BIG-IP device's working configuration and the objects in the BIG-IQ working configuration using one of the following methods:
- Stop importing the services with the conflicts. Resolve each conflict individually on the BIG-IP device'sServicesscreen. Continue importing services after you address the conflicts.
- For the LTM service configuration only: If you encounter LTM configuration conflicts, you can place the device in a silo, continue to discover other BIG-IP devices and later, go back to address the LTM service's conflict(s) for that BIG-IP device. After you address the conflicts, you can re-add the BIG-IP device and discover and import the LTM service (as well as any other licensed services).The option to place a BIG-IP device with a conflict in a silo to address the conflict later is available only for the LTM service. For all other services, you cannot use a silo to address conflicts. For information about managing conflicts from a silo, refer to theBIG-IQ: Using Silos to Resolve LTM Object Conflicts implementationonsupport.askf5.com.
- Use a BIG-IQ conflict resolution policy to automatically treat all configuration object conflicts the same way if a difference is found.
The BIG-IQ conflict resolution policy options are:
- Use BIG-IQ
- Keep the object settings specified in the BIG-IQ working configuration. The next time you deploy a configuration to that BIG-IP device, BIG-IQ overwrites the object settings to match the settings defined on BIG-IQ.
- Use BIG-IP
- Use the object settings specified in the BIG-IP device's configuration to replace the object settings in the BIG-IQ working configuration. For shared objects, the next time you deploy a configuration to a managed device, BIG-IQ replaces the settings for that object on the target device.
- Create Version
- For LTM monitors or profiles, you can create and store a copy of the BIG-IP device's object(s), specific to the software version on that BIG-IP device. For shared objects, the next time you deploy a configuration to a managed device, BIG-IQ replaces the settings for that object if that BIG-IP device is running that specific version. This option allows you to store multiple versions of LTM monitors or profiles knowing that BIG-IQ will deploy the appropriate stored version to your managed devices. The next time you import services that contain LTM monitors or profiles, BIG-IQ automatically resolves conflicts against the appropriate version.
