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Getting Started with BIG-IQ Virtual Edition
What is BIG-IQ Virtual Edition?
BIG-IQ Virtual Edition (VE) is a version of F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management that runs as a virtual machine on specifically-supported hypervisors. BIG-IQ VE emulates a hardware-based BIG-IQ system running a VE-compatible version of BIG-IQ software.
BIG-IQ VE compatibility with OpenStack
Each time there is a new release of BIG-IQ Virtual Edition (VE) software, it includes support for additional public and private cloud products. The Virtual Edition and Supported Hypervisors Matrix on the AskF5 website, support.f5.com , details which are supported for each release.
Hypervisor guest definition requirements
The OpenStack virtual machine guest environment for the BIG-IQ Virtual Edition (VE), at minimum, must include:
Determine the resources required for deployment
CPU, RAM, and disk space requirements are determined by the following factors.
- Are you deploying a BIG-IQ system or a data collection device (DCD)?
- If you are deploying a DCD, how much storage do you need? Refer to the for guidance.
- How much performance do you need?
Usually, the extra storage space is for DCDs. However, there are also situations in which BIG-IQ systems can use the extra space. For example, you might want to store a large number of UCS backups. Or, your business needs might require you to store multiple versions of the BIG-IQ software so you can upgrade back and forth between BIG-IQ versions.
Deployment type | CPUs | RAM | Disk Space |
---|---|---|---|
BIG-IQ system | 4 or 8 See When do I need extra resources? |
16, 32, or 64 GB See When do I need extra resources? |
Generally, 95 GB; or if extra space is needed, 500 GB. |
Data collection device | 4 | 16 GB |
Initially, 500 GB. |
Higher performance and scale | 8 | 32 or 64 GB | VE disk space can be extended further as needed. |
When do I need extra resources?
When the BIG-IQ system you deploy manages a number of devices that exceeds specified thresholds, F5 recommends that you use 8 CPUs and either 32 or 64 GB of RAM. These thresholds vary depending on which modules are licensed on the devices that the BIG-IQ manages and where the devices are deployed.
The following table lists thresholds for each BIG-IP module that impacts the amount of RAM that a BIG-IQ requires. For example, if the BIG-IQ manages more than 32 devices provisioned with the Access module, you should use 32 GB instead of 16.
A BIG-IQ managing devices... | Needs 32 GB to manage more than: |
---|---|
provisioned with Access | 32 devices |
provisioned with ADC | 80 devices |
provisioned with ASM | 40 devices |
provisioned with DNS | 100 devices |
provisioned with FPS | 50 devices |
deployed in a VMware service scaling group | 100 devices |
deployed in an AWS or Azure service scaling group | 50 devices |
OpenStack deployment overview
Before you can deploy a BIG-IQ VE in the OpenStack environment, you must have the following environmental elements in place:
- A tenant (or admin) user account with virtual machine deployment privileges.
- Privileges to create images (that is you must be able to upload QCOW2 files). Contact your system administrator for assistance if your account lacks the requisite permissions.
- Sufficient free remaining computational (CPU, RAM) and disk storage quota for each BIG-IQ VE instance you plan to deploy.
- At least one network, to be used for management access.
- Security groups (firewall rule-sets), for control of inbound and outbound network traffic.
- Pre-defined Flavors (virtual hardware profile definitions).
In addition, you might wish to define the following optional environmental elements:
- Key-pairs, for SSH access (recommended).
- Floating IP addresses, for each tenant network interface that will be externally accessible.
- Additional networks for internal, external, and high-availability traffic as necessary.
Host machine requirements and recommendations
To successfully deploy and run the BIG-IQ VE system, the host system must satisfy minimum requirements.
The host system must include these elements:
- OpenStack on Linux distribution with the
native KVM package as its compute (hypervisor) node. Note: The BIG-IQ Virtual Edition and Supported Hypervisors Matrix, published on support.f5.com identifies the Linux versions currently supported.
- The OpenStack Horizon Dashboard Note: Power users might prefer to use the OpenStack command line or APIs to deploy and configure the BIG-IQ VE. Consult the OpenStack API documentation for your distribution for details on how to use these APIs.
- Connection to a common NTP source (this is especially important for each host in a redundant system configuration).
- Use a 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.
- Intel processors must be from the Core (or newer) workstation or server family of CPUs.
Deploying BIG-IQ Virtual Edition in OpenStack
- Upload a BIG-IQ disk image to the OpenStack environment Datastore.
- Create a new disk volume instance.
- Use the wizard to launch the new instance.
- Power on the BIG-IQ VE virtual machine for the first time.
- Set up the management network on the BIG-IQ virtual machine.
- Determine whether you need to set the BIG-IQ VE MTU value and (it necessary) set it.
Upload a BIG-IQ image to your OpenStack environment
Create a new disk volume
Use the wizard to launch a new instance
Power on the BIG-IQ VE virtual machine for the first time
After the system completes the initialization process, two built-in user accounts are enabled that provide you with the access you need to complete initial configuration and setup:
- The root account provides initial user access to command shells. You can use a local console connection, or you can use SSH. This account also provides access to the F5 Configuration utility. The initial root account password is default.
- The admin account provides initial user access through the web interface. The initial admin account password is admin.
- To configure external access to the Web interface using a floating IP address, you must modify this instance's MTU settings. Refer to Set BIG-IQ VE MTU values to pass traffic between tenant and external networks on support.f5.com for details.
- To configure a connection using a direct uplink between the external network and the BIG-IQ VE management interface, it might not be necessary to change the MTU settings. With a direct uplink, traffic does not pass through an Open-vSwitch router.
Set up the management network on the BIG-IQ virtual machine
- If the interfaces attach to a tenant network subnet that allocates IP addresses from a pre-defined static IP pool, an IP address is automatically assigned to the interface during deployment. In this case, you must use this address to access the BIG-IQ VE user interface or tmsh command-line utility.
- If the interfaces (whether attached to tenant or external networks) are allocated their IP addresses using a DHCP server, then an IP address is automatically assigned to the BIG-IQ VE interface during deployment. You can use this address to access the BIG-IQ VE user interface or tmsh command-line utility.
- If the interfaces attach to a tenant or external network without a mechanism for allocating IP addresses, you must manually assign an unused address to the network interface that complies with the required subnet criteria.
You can use the shell command tmsh list sys management-ip to confirm that the management IP address has been properly assigned.
Deciding whether you need to change the BIG-IQ VE MTU value
- Ports 22 and 443 are open to receiving traffic.
- All required system services appear to be running normally.
- There is no abnormal consumption of system resources (RAM and CPU).
To verify that the MTU setting is causing the issue, you can log in to the BIG-IQ using SSH and run the following command: ifconfig eth0 mtu 1450. Then try connecting to the BIG-IQ again using your browser. If you can connect successfully, then you know that the MTU setting is the issue, and you need to permanently modify the MTU setting to make sure the user interface performs properly.
If you change the MTU value on the BIG-IQ using the command line, the value resets to 1500 whenever the VE reboots. So you need to edit the custom configuration file so that any time the VE restarts, the config file sets the correct value.