Deploying F5 BIG-IP LTM with SAP Business Objects Part I
In this multi-part post I am going to review a recent deployment of F5 LTM + WA in support of SAP Business Objects business intelligence platform. We deployed this landscape at the SAP Co-Innovation lab in Palo Alto California. There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this deployment:
- This was a ‘one armed’ deployment where both the LTM virtual server and Tomcat servers were on the same network
- We provided traffic management for Sybase IQ servers on port 5788, this port is configurable and is not hard set
- In order to support scale testing for the Business Objects environment we deployed a BIG-IP 11000 with a SNAT Pool configured. This was to support performance and scale testing at the COIL labs. Your configuration may have a smaller hardware platform and you may not need to configure a SNAT Pool.
F5 Hardware and Software Components Used in the Deployment
Software: F5 BIG-IP 11.0 HF1 Build 8121
F5 Hardware Platform: F5 BIG-IP 11050
Networking Setup:
BOE_Trunk: Interfaces 1.1, 1.2
VLAN Setup: VLAN186 untagged BOE_Trunk tag: 4094
Self IP Addresses:
MGT: 10.1.86.200 VLAN186
Production: 10.1.86.201 VLAN186
Configure SNAT Pool
- From the F5 web UI navigate to SNATs -> SNAT List and click on the + to add a new SNAT
- Provide a name for the new SNAT list, in this instance we will name it ‘BOE_SNAT’
- Under the Configuration -> Translation menu select the drop down and choose SNAT_POOL
- On the right hand side select BOE_SNAT_POOL
- Keep all other defaults and click ‘Finish’
- Navigate to SNATs -> SNAT Pool and click + to add a SNAT pool
- Provide a name for this pool in this example we named our pool BOE_SNAT_POOL
- In the Configuration section enter the IP addresses for the members of your SNAT pool and click ‘add’ in this instance we added 10.1.86.202 and 10.1.86.203
- Click ‘Update’ to commit the changes to the configuration
- Configure a SNAT translation list from the UI navigate to SNATs -> SNAT Translation List and click +
- Provide the name for your SNAT translation add the IP address in this case we will add 10.1.86.202 and 10.1.86.203
- Check the box next to ‘Inherit device group from current partition/path’
- Check the box for ARP
- Accept all remaining defaults and click ‘Finish’
Configure Monitors:
BOE_HTTP Monitor
- From the UI navigate to monitors and click on ‘Create’
- Provide a name for your monitor in this example we will call it BOE_HTTP
- Under ‘Type’ select HTTP (A list of menus will display below)
- Under ‘Send String’ add the line GET /BOE/portal/1108161604/InfoView/logon.jsp\r\n
- Under ‘Receive String’ add the line BUSINESS OBJECTS
- Accept all other defaults and choose ‘Update’
BOE_HTTPS_Monitor
- Click create again under the ‘monitors’ section
- Provide a name for your monitor in this example we will name our monitor BOE_HTTPS
- Under ‘Type’ select HTTPS
- Under ‘Send String add the line GET /BOE/portal/1108161604/InfoView/logon.jsp\r\n
- Under ‘Receive String’ add the line BUSINESS OBJECTS
- Accept all other defaults and choose ‘Update’
Configure Profiles
HTTP Profiles:
- From the Profiles section click ‘Create’ in this example we named our profile ‘BOE_HTTP’
o Parent profile is http
o Accept all defaults and click ‘Update’
- From the same tab click create again in this case we named our profile ‘BOE_base_http’
o Parent profile is set to http
o Click on the checkbox to modify the config and change ‘Pipelining’ to Disabled
o Click ‘Update’
Add Nodes to Configuration:
- Navigate to ‘Local Traffic’ -> ‘Nodes’
- Click create and specify a ‘Node Specific’ monitor select ICMP
| Node IP Addresses |
| 10.1.86.101 |
In part 2 we will setup the virtual servers and configure Web Accelerator (WA) in part 3 we will review the setup of Sybase with LTM. Please feel free to provide comments or feedback!