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jaked_150553's avatar
jaked_150553
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Jun 13, 2014

best method to loadbalance bigip vips with GTM

I am trying to understand, which is the best method to loadbalance bigip VIPs from two different datacenters:

 

1> create two datacenters in GTM group, add the bigip VIPs as nodes into it - OR 2> add the bigips to the GTM using 'bigipadd' and then add the vips under each corresponding bigip section in the GTM. Use these in the building loadbalancing wideips.

 

The catch with 1st option is that bigip vips complete tcp handshake even when they are down because of members being down behind them. This might lead to false state of VIPs in GTM pools. So, is using bigipadd (iquery is used to send status of VIPs to GTM) the only feasible and practical method of loadbalancing bigip VIPs with GTM?

 

application delivery
BIG-IP DNS
design
LTM

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  • Cory_50405's avatar
    Cory_50405
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    Jun 13, 2014

    Option 2 is the ideal configuration. You'll always want to configure GTM -> LTM communication using iQuery and allow the LTM to report the health of its objects through that channel.

     

    • jaked_150553's avatar
      jaked_150553
      Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
      Jun 13, 2014
      Can you point me to any article which details this setup please?
  • Cory_50405's avatar
    Cory_50405
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    Jun 13, 2014

    Sure. Here's an article detailing the GTM -> LTM setup:

     

    http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_gtm/manuals/product/gtm-implementations-11-3-0/7.html

     

    You'd build your GTM pool objects to reference the virtual servers defined underneath the LTM server objects. You don't need to explicitly define health monitors at the GTM level since they are inherited from LTM.