Applies To:
Show Versions
BIG-IP AAM
- 11.6.4, 11.6.3, 11.6.2, 11.6.1
BIG-IP APM
- 11.6.4, 11.6.3, 11.6.2, 11.6.1
BIG-IP GTM
- 11.6.4, 11.6.3, 11.6.2, 11.6.1
BIG-IP Analytics
- 11.6.4, 11.6.3, 11.6.2, 11.6.1
BIG-IP LTM
- 11.6.4, 11.6.3, 11.6.2, 11.6.1
BIG-IP AFM
- 11.6.4, 11.6.3, 11.6.2, 11.6.1
BIG-IP PEM
- 11.6.4, 11.6.3, 11.6.2, 11.6.1
BIG-IP ASM
- 11.6.4, 11.6.3, 11.6.2, 11.6.1
Host machine requirements and recommendations
To successfully deploy and run the BIG-IP VE system, the host system must satisfy minimum requirements.
The host system must include:
- Microsoft Windows Server with the Hyper-V role enabled. The Virtual Edition and Supported Hypervisors Matrix, published on the AskF5 web site, http://support.f5.com identifies the versions that are supported.
- Connection to a common NTP source (this is especially important for each host in a redundant system configuration)
- Use 64-bit architecture.
- Have support for virtualization (AMD-V or Intel VT-x) enabled.
- Support a one-to-one thread-to-defined virtual CPU ratio, or (on single-threading architectures) support at least one core per defined virtual CPU.
- If you use an Intel processor, it must be from the Core (or newer) workstation or server family of CPUs.
SSL encryption processing on your VE will be faster if your host CPU supports the Advanced Encryption Standard New Instruction (AES-NI). Contact your CPU vendor for details on which CPUs provide AES-NI support.
The hypervisor memory requirement depends on the number of licensed TMM cores. The table describes these requirements.
Number of Cores | Memory Required |
---|---|
1 | 2 Gb |
2 | 4 Gb |
4 | 8 Gb |
8 | 16 Gb |
About BIG-IP VE Hyper-V deployment
To deploy the BIG-IP Virtual Edition (VE) system on Microsoft Hyper-V, you need to perform these tasks:
- Verify the host machine requirements.
- Deploy an instance of the BIG-IP system as a virtual machine on a host system.
- Power on the BIG-IP VE virtual machine.
- Assign a management IP address to the BIG-IP VE virtual machine.
After you complete these tasks, you can log in to the BIG-IP VE system and run the Setup utility. Using the Setup utility, you can perform basic network configuration tasks, such as assigning VLANs to interfaces.
Deploying the BIG-IP VE virtual machine
The first steps in deploying BIG-IP VE are to download the Zip file and extract the virtual hard drive (VHD) file, and save it to the server running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or 2012 with the Hyper-V role enabled. Next, you configure the virtual machine using Hyper-V Manager and the Settings window.
Requirements and recommendations for optimum Hyper-V throughput
F5 performance testing has determined a number of configuration adjustments that optimize performance throughput for Microsoft Hyper-V VE. While none of these configuration settings and component recommendations are required for 1Gbps performance, F5 Networks testing has certified maximum throughput levels using these specific settings. Note that you may be able to achieve maximum throughput levels with settings and components other than those described here; follow these guidelines to insure success.
Host system recommendations
Optimum settings for the host system include:
- An Intel X520 network interface card (NICs) with two ports, one for the external and one for the internal interface. The NIC used for the management and/or HA interfaces can be a 1G card. For configurations that include an HA VLAN, the virtual switch can either share the NIC used by the management VLAN or use its own NIC.
- Each NIC requires a virtual switch.
- If your are using the Intel X520 NIC, the NIC drivers must be upgraded to a version at least as recent as version 3.8.35.0 NDIS 6.30.
- The driver properties for the 10G NICs must be modified to disable Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) and Interrupt Moderation. (You can use either the Hyper-V Manager graphic user interface or the PowerShell command line interface to perform this modification.)
Hypervisor recommendations
Optimum settings for the Hyper-V Manager include:
- Disable NUMA Spanning.
- Disable VMQ for this specific VE. You should do this even if you've already disabled VMQ for the hypervisor, but especially if you chose not to disable VMQ for the hypervisor NICs.
- Increase the number of licensed TMM cores to 8 and the amount of memory to 16 Gb.
BIG-IP VE considerations
You may also increase your VE performance by reducing the interrupt coalescing threshold for the BIG-IP VE. (You can use the following tmsh command: tmsh modify sys db scheduler.unicasleeprxlimit.ltm value 16 .Powering on the virtual machine
There are two default accounts used for initial configuration and setup:
- The root account provides access locally, or using SSH, or using the F5 Configuration utility. The root account password is default.
- The admin account provides access through the web interface. The admin account password is admin.
You should change passwords for both accounts before bringing a system into production.
Assigning a management IP address to a virtual machine
You can use a hypervisor generic statement such as tmsh show sys management-ip to confirm that the management IP address has been properly assigned.