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PeteW's avatar
PeteW
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Dec 12, 2012

LTM6800 to Viprion chassis

Chaps,

 

 

It looks like I'll be tasked with migrating a pair of active/passive 6800 LTM BigIP's to a new pair of Viprion 2400 chassis.

 

The current kit is running v9.4.5 with around 160VIPS and about 20 iRules that call various DGL's etc.

 

As I need to keep the current kit in place and build the Viprion's alongside is there a preferred way to migrate the current configuration running on v9.4.5 over to the Viprion which I assume will be running v11 by default?

 

I had the sneaking suspicion that I would need to upgrade to a version 10 config before I could import into Viprion.

 

Any pointers/suggestions/migration gotchas greatly received as I anticipate a certain amount of carnage.

 

 

P.S. is it also correct that the bigpipe command has been deprecated after 10.2?

 

Pete

 

 

4 Replies

  • Hi Pete,

     

     

    This will be a bit complicated to do and I suggest you work with your F5 or partner SE to come up with a plan. As a high level overview, I'd consider:

     

     

     

    do the port in advance if it’s a version and platform move

     

    implement a change freeze on the original units

     

    export the config to SCF plus certs

     

    upgrade on the same platform or a VE to the target LTM version

     

    load the SCF config on the new Viprions

     

    adjust the interfaces in the bigip_base.conf

     

     

    If you have iRules take a look at the CMP compatibility wiki page for steps to ensure your iRules will not cause the virtual servers to run on only the first TMM instance:

     

    https://devcentral.f5.com/wiki/iRules.CMPCompatibility.ashx

     

     

    If you want to run both platforms simultaneously, you'd want to assign new self IPs to the Viprions before connecting any of the switch ports to the network. You could then migrate a virtual server one at a time. If you want to revert an individual service back to the original 6800 pair, you can disable ARP for the virtual address on the Viprions, enable ARP on the 6800s and clear the upstream device(s)'s ARP cache.

     

     

    Aaron
  • PeteW's avatar
    PeteW
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    Thanks Aaron that really is excellent advice, much appreciated.

     

     

    Pete

     

  • I left out a good step:

     

     

    Before putting the new platform into production, run qkview and upload it to iHealth.f5.com to check for any known issues with your config now that you're on a version that iHealth supports.

     

     

    Aaron
  • PeteW's avatar
    PeteW
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    Aaron that's great many thanks chap :)

     

     

    Pete