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Manual Chapter : Deploying Changes

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BIG-IQ Centralized Management

  • 5.2.0
Manual Chapter
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How do I evaluate changes made to managed objects?

To change the object settings on a managed device, there are four tasks to perform.

This figure illustrates the workflow you perform to manage the objects on BIG-IP® devices. Evaluating the changes you have made is the third step in this process.

Evaluate object changes

Overview of evaluating changes made to managed objects

Note: If you need to make an urgent change, you can skip the evaluation step. However, we highly recommend evaluation in all but emergency situations. See Making an urgent deployment for details.

Evaluate configuration changes

Evaluating your changes gives you a chance to spot critical errors and review your revisions one more time before deploying them.
Note: When BIG-IQ® Centralized Management evaluates configuration changes, it first re-discovers the configuration from the managed device to ensure that there are no unexpected differences. If there are issues, the default behavior is to discard any changes made on the managed device, and then deploy the configuration changes.
  • To accept the default, proceed with the evaluation. The settings from the managing BIG-IQ overwrite the settings on the managed BIG-IP® device.
  • To override the default, re-discover the device and re-import the service. The settings from the managed BIG-IP device overwrite any changes that have been made using the BIG-IQ.
Note: Critical errors are issues with a configuration change that cannot be deployed successfully. Verification warnings are less serious in that they might not cause the deployment to fail, but you should review them,nonetheless.
Note: If you have Local Traffic & Network (LTM) changes to deploy, deploy the LTM changes before deploying changes to other components, or those deployments might fail.
  1. At the top of the screen, click Deployment.
  2. Under EVALUATE & DEPLOY, select the component for which you want to make changes.
    The screen displays a list of evaluations and deployments defined on this device.
  3. Under Evaluations, click Create.
    The New Evaluation screen opens.
  4. In the Name field, type in a name for the evaluation task you are creating.
  5. In the Description field, type in a brief description for the evaluation task you are creating.
  6. For the Source, select what you want to evaluate.
    • To compare the object settings currently on the managed device with the object settings in the pending version, select Current Changes.
    • To compare the object settings currently on the managed device with the object settings in a stored snapshot, select Existing Snapshot, then choose the snapshot you want to use.
  7. Unless you are evaluating changes for Access, determine the Source Scope; that is, choose whether you want to evaluate all of the changes from the selected source, or specify which changes to evaluate. Select either All Changes or Partial Changes.
    If you select Partial Changes, the screen displays additional controls.
    1. For a partial deployment, click Add to specify the configuration objects you want to include in the evaluation. A popup screen opens.
      Note: If you include objects in an evaluation that have not been changed, and you later deploy this evaluation, the unchanged objects are not deployed to your BIG-IP device. Only objects that have been changed are deployed.
    2. On the Available tab, select the object type for which you want to evaluate changes.
    3. From the list of configuration changes, select the objects that you want to evaluate and click Add.
    4. If there are additional object types you want to include in this evaluation, repeat the last two sub-steps for each object type.
    5. If you add an object to the evaluation and then change your mind, you can click the Selected tab, select the object, and click Remove.
    6. When you have added all of the changes that you want to include in this evaluation, click Save.
    The objects you selected for inclusion are listed under Source Objects.
  8. For Supporting Objects, your options depend on the component you are deploying changes for.
    Option Description
    For Access Clear the Include associated LTM Objects check box if you want to deploy changes only to the selected Access objects. It is almost always best to deploy changes to the associated local traffic objects as well.
    For Network Security or Local Traffic & Network If you are deploying only partial changes, clear the Include check box if you want to deploy changes only to the selected objects. It is almost always best to deploy changes to the associated objects as well.
    For Web Application Security Supporting objects are always included.
    Note: The objects that you manage using BIG-IQ depend on associations with other, supporting objects. These object associations form relationship trees that are sometimes quite complex. Generally, when you deploy a change to a managed object, it is a very good idea to include these supporting objects in the deployment. This diagram illustrates a typical relationship tree for a Network Services managed object. For Local Traffic or Web Application Security objects, the trees are equally complex and just as vital to include.
    Network Services supporting objects tree
  9. Using the Target Devices settings, identify the devices for which you want to evaluate changes.
    1. If the devices are in a device group, select Group, and select the group from the list.
    2. If the devices are not in a device group, select Device.
    3. Select the devices from the Available list, and move the devices to the Selected list.
      Important: If you deploy changes to a device that is in a DSC® cluster, you must include both devices before you can create the evaluation.
      Important: If the device in the Selected list has a filled circle in front of it, a deployment is needed for the BIG-IP device configuration to match the BIG-IQ working configuration for that BIG-IP device. This notification occurs only when creating Web Application Security evaluations.
  10. If you decide you want to remove one of the objects selected for deployment, you can select it and then click Remove.
  11. Click the Create button at the bottom of the screen.
    The system adds the new evaluation to the list, and analyzes the changes for errors. When the configuration evaluation completes, you see how many changes or errors the evaluation found.
  12. Review the evaluation to determine whether you are going to deploy it or not.
    1. If there are critical errors, you cannot deploy these changes. Click each error to see what it is, and then go back to where you made the change to fix it.
      After resolving any critical errors, you can come back and repeat the evaluation.
    2. If there are verification warnings, you can still deploy your changes, but you will probably want to resolve the warnings first. Click each warning to see what it is, and then go back to where you made the change to fix it.
      After resolving any verification warnings, you can come back and repeat the evaluation.
    3. If there are no critical errors or verification warnings, review the changes by clicking the view link.
      Each change is listed. You can review each one by clicking the name.
    4. When you finish reviewing the differences, click Cancel.

To apply these just-evaluated object changes to the managed device, they must be deployed. Refer to Deploy configuration changes for instructions.

How do I deploy changes made to managed objects?

Deploying changes applies the revisions that you have made on the BIG-IQ® Centralized Management system to the managed BIG-IP® devices.

This figure illustrates the workflow you perform to manage the objects on BIG-IP devices. Deploying the settings is the last step in this process.

Deploy object changes

Change managed object workflow

Deploy configuration changes

To apply the changes you made on the BIG-IQ® Centralized Management system to your managed device, you must deploy those changes to the managed device.

  1. At the top of the screen, click Deployment.
  2. Under EVALUATE & DEPLOY, select the component for which you want to make changes.
    The screen displays a list of evaluations and deployments defined on this device.
  3. Click the name of the evaluation that you want to deploy.
    The View Evaluation screen opens.
  4. Specify whether you want to deploy the changes immediately or schedule deployment for later.
    • To deploy this change immediately:
      1. Select Deploy Now.
      2. Click Deploy to confirm.
    • To deploy this change later:
      1. Select the Schedule for later check box.
      2. Select the date and time.
      3. Click Schedule Deployment.
    The process of deploying changes can take some time, especially if there are a large number of changes. During this time, you can click Cancel to stop the deployment process.
    Important: If you cancel a deployment, some of the changes might have already deployed. Cancel does not roll back these changes.
The evaluation you chose is added to the list of deployments on the bottom half of the screen.
  • If you chose to deploy immediately, the changes begin to deploy and the Status column updates as it proceeds.
  • If you choose to delay deployment, the Status column displays the scheduled date and time.

Make an urgent deployment

If you need to make an urgent change, you can skip the Evaluate configuration changes task and deploy changes to your BIG-IP® device immediately. Changes to configuration objects are still validated; if there are critical errors, the deployment does not proceed. But you can avoid the task of creating an evaluation and viewing the changes and get right to deploying your changes.

Note: Making a deployment without evaluating the changes first is not generally recommended. However, in situations where you need to deploy changes as quickly as possible, you can deploy the changes right away. The urgent deployment work flow skips the task of creating an evaluation, which speeds up the process of deploying your changes.
  1. At the top of the screen, click Deployment.
  2. Under EVALUATE & DEPLOY, select the component for which you want to make changes.
    The screen displays a list of evaluations and deployments defined on this device.
  3. Under Deployments, click Create.
    The New Deployment screen opens.
  4. In the Name field, type in a name for the deployment task you are creating.
  5. In the Description field, type in a brief description for the deployment task you are creating.
  6. For the Source setting, select what you want to deploy.
    • To deploy your changes to the managed device, select Current Changes.
    • To deploy the object settings from a stored snapshot, select Existing Snapshot, then choose the snapshot you want to use.
  7. Unless you are evaluating changes for Access, determine the Source Scope; that is, choose whether you want to evaluate all of the changes from the selected source, or specify which changes to evaluate. Select either All Changes or Partial Changes.
    If you select Partial Changes, the screen displays additional controls.
    1. For a partial deployment, click Add to specify the configuration objects you want to include in the evaluation. A popup screen opens.
      Note: If you include objects in an evaluation that have not been changed, and you later deploy this evaluation, the unchanged objects are not deployed to your BIG-IP device. Only objects that have been changed are deployed.
    2. On the Available tab, select the object type for which you want to evaluate changes.
    3. From the list of configuration changes, select the objects that you want to evaluate and click Add.
    4. If there are additional object types you want to include in this evaluation, repeat the last two sub-steps for each object type.
    5. If you add an object to the evaluation and then change your mind, you can click the Selected tab, select the object, and click Remove.
    6. When you have added all of the changes that you want to include in this evaluation, click Save.
    The objects you selected for inclusion are listed under Source Objects.
  8. For Supporting Objects, your options depend on the component you are deploying changes for.
    Option Description
    For Access Clear the Include associated LTM Objects check box if you want to deploy changes only to the selected Access objects. It is almost always best to deploy changes to the associated local traffic objects as well.
    For Network Security or Local Traffic & Network If you are deploying only partial changes, clear the Include check box if you want to deploy changes only to the selected objects. It is almost always best to deploy changes to the associated objects as well.
    For Web Application Security Supporting objects are always included.
    Note: The objects that you manage using BIG-IQ depend on associations with other, supporting objects. These object associations form relationship trees that are sometimes quite complex. Generally, when you deploy a change to a managed object, it is a very good idea to include these supporting objects in the deployment. This diagram illustrates a typical relationship tree for a Network Services managed object. For Local Traffic or Web Application Security objects, the trees are equally complex and just as vital to include.
    Network Services supporting objects tree
  9. If you decide you want to remove one of the objects selected for deployment, you can select it and then click Remove.
  10. Consider one more time how you want to deploy these changes.
    • If you want to review the changes, click Create evaluation.
    • To make the changes right now, click Deploy immediately.
  11. Using the Target Devices settings, identify the devices for which you want to deploy changes.
    1. If the devices are in a device group, select Group, and select the group.
    2. If the devices are not in a device group, select Device.
    3. Select the devices from the Available list and use the arrow button to move the devices to the Enabled list.
  12. Start the evaluation or deployment.
    When you choose this Method: Perform these steps
    Create evaluation
    1. Click Evaluate.
    2. The evaluation begins.
      • If you are deploying changes for a specific object, when the evaluation is complete you can decide how and when you want to deploy it.
      • If you are deploying changes to a number of devices, the evaluation is added to the Evaluations list with a status of Pending confirmation.
    Deploy immediately
    1. Click Deploy.
    2. A confirmation screen notifies you that you are about to trigger a deployment.
    3. Click Deploy again to deploy the changes to your device.

Deploy to one device when a cluster member is down

Deploying changes to a device in a cluster that has a device offline will generally fail. Normally, all device members must be available before you deploy changes to a cluster member. However, if you need to deploy changes before all cluster members are available you can do so.
  1. At the top of the screen, click Devices.
  2. Under Device Name, click the cluster member to which you want to deploy changes.
    The properties screen for this member opens.
  3. Under Cluster Properties, click Edit.
    The Cluster Properties popup screen for this cluster opens.
  4. For Deployment Settings, select Ignore BIG-IP DSC sync when deploying configuration changes.
  5. Click OK, and then click Close.

With the Ignore BIG-IP DSC sync when deploying configuration changes option selected, you can now deploy changes to the member that is available, and BIG-IQ will not attempt to sync those changes to the member that is unavailable.

Use the Deploy configuration changes task to deploy changes to the available member. When you select the target device for deployment, do not select the unavailable device.

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