F5 VMware

Virtual Community Roundtable

VMware Alliance Team @ F5

VMwarePartnership@f5.com

http://www.f5.com/vmware

http://devcentral.f5.com/vmware

2

Common Practical Issues

• How can I provision more seamlessly?

• How can I make application performance better?

• How can I automate more administrative tasks?

• How can I simplify network configuration for VMs?

• How can I take full advantage of VMotion?

• How can I secure my virtual desktop deployments?

• How can I streamline virtual desktop access steps?

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F5 & VMware

• F5 & VMware are active, global partners

• 4+ years of history as managed partners

• Primary partnership goals

Compatibility / Interoperability Testing

New Solution Development

New Solution Documentation

• Across all major F5 and VMware products

• Ongoing cooperative solution development

• Coordinated back-end customer support

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Recent Highlights

• F5 named Global Technology Innovator Partner

of the Year

VMware awards highest honor to F5 at 2011 Partner

Exchange

Recognition for deep integration and solution

development

• “VMware-Ready” certifications

LTM Virtual Edition and FirePass VE

• Recent Releases

View desktop solution (Edge Gateway and APM for

LTM VE)

vCloud Director – joint cloud bursting solution

Management Plug-in for vSphere

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Current Mapping F5/VMware Solutions to Features

Top 6 Most Common Customer Virtualization Project Types

Top 10 F5

Solutions for VMware

Application

Virtualization

(vSphere)

Server

Consolidation

(vSphere)

Data Center

Consolidation

(vSphere)

BC/DR

(SRM)

Desktop

Virtualization

(View)

Cloud

(vCD)

Server Offload

Management Integration

Automated Provisioning

SRM Integration

Global Availability

Long Distance vMotion

WAN Optimization

Multi-Tenant ADC

Single Sign-On

Secure Access

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Server Virtualization & F5

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Improving VM Density

Typical virtualized

server SSL

Caching

Compression

One Connect

TCP Optimization

Offlo

ad

Same server

with BIG-IP

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Automating Network Changes: vCenter

• BIG-IP LTM & VMware vCenter can be integrated for

automatic provisioning of local VMs on demand

• Respond to changes in traffic volume

• Provision to mean rather than peak

• Reduce manual labor

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Web Clients

FrontEnd

AppServers Virtualization

App. Server App. Server App. Server

Storage Virtualization

Frontends Virtualization BIG-IP LTM

BIG-IP LTM

FrontEnd FrontEnd

Web Clients

iControl

iControl

vCenter

+

AppSpeed

(optional)

Demand ↑ ↑ ↑

F5 Provision

Detection

Automation

VM Provision

Demand ↓ ↓ ↓

VM Deprovision

Detection

Automation

F5 Deprovision

Illustration: LTM & vCenter Integration

Mo

nit

ori

ng

& M

an

ag

em

en

t

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Automating Network Changes: SRM

• BIG-IP GTM & VMware SRM integrated to enable

failover between sites

• GTM makes traffic follow SRM failover

• Automatic

• Minimize Application Downtime

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Illustration: GTM & SRM Integration

SRM Failover

Ongoing Replication

(a) GTM Health checks reveal unhealthy site 1.

(b) GTM self-executes a redirection to site 2.

Site 1 Site 2

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LTM - Virtual Edition

• Available as a trial, developer or production editions

• Runs on any server compatible with ESX

• Managed just like a physical LTM

• Feature & Functionality Parity

• APM VE, EM VE, APX VE

ESX v4, ESXi v4

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F5 Management Plug-In for vSphere

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F5 Management Plug-In for vSphere

• Free Software Plug-In for VMware vSphere

• Attaches to vCenter Server – modifies vSphere Client GUI

• Operates with both physical and virtual LTM editions

• Streamlines the administrative steps of adding VM nodes from load

balancing pools

• Automates actions based on pre-defined policies

• Reduces risk of error

• Reduces manual effort

• Officially supported by F5 (in it’s unmodified state)

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vSphere Client GUI

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Cloud Computing & F5

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Escaping Boundaries Between DCs New Use Cases for Well Established Functionality

• Migration

• Disaster avoidance

• Capacity expansion

Key Technical Problems Solved: • Performance problems caused by

latency or bandwidth

• Dynamic, transparent rerouting of

client traffic from site 1 to site 2

• Loss of app sessions or

connections when migrating to

another location

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Symmetric Compression

• Adaptive

• Deflate

• LZO

SSL Encryption

Integrated and free with BIG-IP LTM v10

Note: Not available on the 1500 and 3400

Secure & Optimized Tunnel between

Cloud & DC “BIG-IP iSessions”

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F5/VMware Cloud Bursting Solution

(Hybrid Cloud)

Private Clouds Public Clouds

Management Management

vSphere vSphere

Hybrid Cloud

APP

Loads

APP

Loads

APP

Loads

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Solution Architecture at a Glance

Public Cloud Private Data Center

n+1

LTM WAN

Optimization

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Hybrid Cloud Architecture

vCenter-1 vCenter-2

Definition: Serving an application

across multiple clouds, data centers,

or both

Use Cases

• Automated Failover

• Federated Cloud Authentication

• Elastic Applications

Architectural features

• Global traffic management

• Intelligent application and session

persistence

• Network API

• Global traffic policies

• L7 content inspection and routing

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Scaling the Cloud

• Global load balancing

– Can be policy-based for automated

changes (re: SRM)

– Minimize unused resources

– Geo-location improves user

experience

– Provision to Mean vs. Peak

• Scenarios

– Capacity Expansion

– BC/DR

– Cloud Bursting

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Long Distance Live Migration

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Escaping Boundaries Between DCs New Use Cases for Well Established Functionality

• Migration

• Disaster avoidance

• Capacity expansion

Key Technical Problems Solved: • Performance problems caused by

latency or bandwidth

• Network retransmission of client

traffic from site 1 to site 2

• Loss of app sessions when

migrating to another location

25 Logical representation, not physical

vCenter Server

Internet

EtherIP Tunnel EtherIP Tunnel

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Acceleration & Encryption • F5 testing results of common bandwidth/latency combinations

• iSessions™ or WAN Optimization Module™

• SSL encryption

• Acceleration: TCP Optimization, Deduplication, Compression

• Able to successfully VMotion in conditions where previously failed

Bandwidth

(Mbps)

Link

Latency

(RTT ms)

Link Packet

Loss (%)

Average

Time without

WOM in

Minutes

Average

Time

with WOM

in Minutes

Acceleration

Factor

45 (T3) 100 0% 13:43 3:35 3.8X

100 25 0% 6:10 1:18 4.7X

155 (OC3) 100 0% 13:25 3:29 3.9X

622 (OC12) 40 0% 5:57 1:57 3.1X

1000

(Ethernet)

20 0% 2:38 0:38 3.5X

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Desktop Virtualization & F5

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Common Desktop Virtualization Challenges

• User Experience

– Performance over the Wide Area Network

– Access methods / complexity

– Login steps / annoyance

• Security

– Encryption of all WAN traffic

– Unified Access (Local vs. Remote, Desktop vs. Smart Phone)

– Integration with existing authentication infrastructure

– Endpoint integrity inspection

• Scalability/Availability

– Scaling VDM servers without more power or rackspace

– Ensuring total availability of connection brokers

Your Questions

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Next Steps

• Sign up for the VMware Topic Group on DevCentral

– http://devcentral.f5.com/vmware

• Check out F5 solutions for VMware

– http://www.f5.com/vmware

• Download the vSphere Plug-in from DevCentral

• Meet us:

– VMUGs – see http://www.f5.com/events

– VMworld US – August 29th, Las Vegas

– VMworld EMEA - October 18th, Copenhagen

• Contact us: VMwarePartnership@f5.com

www.f5.com/vmware