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Release Note: BIG-IP WOM version 11.1.0
Original Publication Date: 02/01/2012
Summary:
This release note documents the version 11.1.0 release of BIG-IP WAN Optimization Manager.
Contents:
- User documentation for this release
- New in 11.1.0
- New in 11.0.0
- Installation overview
- Installation checklist
- Installing the software
- Post-installation tasks
- Installation tips
- Upgrading from earlier versions
- Fixes in 11.1.0
- Fixes in 11.0.0
- Known issues
- Contacting F5 Networks
- Legal notices
Supported hardware
You can apply the software upgrade to systems running software versions 10.x. For a list of supported platforms, see SOL9412: The BIG-IP release matrix. For information about which platforms support which module combinations, see SOL10288: BIG-IP software and platform support matrix.
User documentation for this release
For a comprehensive list of documentation that is relevant to this release, refer to the BIG-IP WOM 11.1.0 Documentation page.
New in 11.1.0
WOM-Lite Support on Chassis Platforms
WAN Optimization services, including TCP optimization and symmetric adaptive compression, are now available on the VIPRION chassis-based platforms to provide maximum throughput and scalability. In addition, with optional vCMP support, customers can benefit from the flexibility of virtualization and multi-tenancy. Note: Symmetric data deduplication and CIFS and MAPI proxies are not available on VIPRION in this release.
Expanded Hypervisor Support
New WOM Virtual Edition (VE) expanded hypervisor support for Citrix XenServer and Microsoft HyperV enables broader deployment for cloud-based environments.
600 GB SSD Option
Larger capacity 600 GB SSD option for the 11000 platform delivers improved disk-based data deduplication performance for large replication environments.
New in 11.0.0
WOM Standalone
WOM standalone provides dedicated WAN optimization without the overhead of additional BIG-IP module licenses.
WOM Virtual Edition (VE)
WOM VE offers an option to deploy full-featured WAN optimization technology, including deduplication, independent of the hardware platform.
WOM SSD Support for 11000 Platform
The BIG-IP WOM 11000 platform supports four 300 GB solid-state drives, thus accommodating a large cache size for WOM datastor. The resulting bigger and faster datastor provides higher performance, particularly for data center to data center deployments. Note: When using SSDs, you must unprovision the WOM datastor on the local disk, and then provision datastor on the SSDs.
Subnet Discovery
WOM automatically adds subnets that can be reached through the local endpoint. Remote endpoints use this information for routing decisions. When WOM discovers a server, it adds the subnet to the list of advertised routes, which simplifies the table of discovered servers, and increases the efficiency of the discovery process.
iSession over IPsec
IPsec support provides secure communication over both TCP and UDP. For example, you can create an IPsec tunnel for all IP traffic to simplify the security and routing required for moving traffic between data centers. Note: Only the TCP traffic is optimized.
WOM Quick Start Screen Enhancements
The WOM Quick Start screen now includes IPv6 support and additional optimized applications.
Compression Enhancements
Hardware compression enhancements provide performance improvement for single connection compression. The addition of the bzip2 compression algorithm for software compression expands the algorithms available to symmetric adaptive compression logic, which selects the best codec for compression based on link conditions. The bzip2 codec is useful for improving compression ratios and throughput for lower speed links.
TCP Packet Loss Enhancements
Enhancements to the TCP stack improve performance across WAN links that have significant packet loss.
Installation overview
This document lists very basic steps for installing the software. BIG-IP System: Upgrading Active/Standby Systems and BIG-IP System: Upgrading Active-Active Systems contain details and step-by-step instructions for completing an upgrade.
Installation checklist
Before you begin:
- Update/reactivate your system license, if needed, to ensure that you have a valid service check date.
- Ensure that your system is running version 10.0.0 or later and is using the volumes formatting scheme.
- Download the .iso file (if needed) from F5 Downloads to /shared/images on the source for the operation. (If you need to create this directory, use the exact name /shared/images.)
- Configure a management port.
- Set the console and system baud rate to 19200, if it is not already.
- Log on as an administrator using the management port of the system you want to upgrade.
- Boot into an installation location other than the target for the installation.
- Save the user configuration set (UCS) in the /var/local/ucs directory on the source installation location, and copy the UCS file to a safe place on another device.
- Log on to the standby unit, and only upgrade the active unit after the standby upgrade is satisfactory.
- Turn off mirroring.
- If you are running WAN Optimization Manager, set provisioning to Minimum.
Installing the software
To install the software, use one of the methods described here.
| Install method | Command |
|---|---|
| Format for volumes, migrate source configuration to destination | image2disk --format=volumes <downloaded_filename.iso> |
| Format for volumes, preserve destination configuration (for fully 10.x environments) | image2disk --nomoveconfig --format=volumes <downloaded_filename.iso> |
| Install without formatting (not for first-time 10.x installation) | bigpipe software desired HD.<n.n> version 10.x build <nnnn.n>.iso product BIG-IP |
| Format for partitions (for mixed 9.x and 10.x environments) | image2disk --format=partitions <downloaded_filename.iso> |
| Install from the browser-based Configuration utility | Use the Software Management screens in a web browser. |
Post-installation tasks
This document lists very basic steps for installing the software. BIG-IP System: Upgrading Active/Standby Systems and BIG-IP System: Upgrading Active-Active Systems contain details and step-by-step instructions for completing an upgrade.
- Ensure the system rebooted to the new installation location.
- Log on to the browser-based Configuration utility.
- Run the Setup utility.
- Provision the modules.
- Convert any bigpipe scripts to tmsh. (Version 11.0.0 does not support the bigpipe utility.)
Installation tips
- The upgrade process installs the software on the inactive installation location that you specify. This process usually takes between three minutes and seven minutes. During the upgrade process, you see messages posted on the screen. For example, you might see a prompt asking whether to upgrade the End User Diagnostics (EUD), depending on the version you have installed. To upgrade the EUD, type yes, otherwise, type no.
- You can view a list of the image2disk utility options by running the command image2disk --help.
- You can check the status of an active installation operation by running the command watch tmsh show sys software, which runs the show sys software command every two seconds. Pressing Ctrl + C stops the watch feature.
- If installation fails, you can view the log file. For image2disk installations, the system logs messages to the file you specify using the --t option. For other installations, the system stores the installation log file as /var/log/liveinstall.log.
Upgrading from earlier versions
Your upgrade process differs depending on the version of software you are currently running. Software version 10.x introduced the ability to run multiple modules based on platform. The number and type of modules that can be run simultaneously is strictly enforced through licensing. For more information, see SOL10288: BIG-IP software and platform support matrix.
Upgrading from version 10.x
When you upgrade from version 10.x software, you use the Software Management screens in the Configuration utility to complete these steps. To open the Software Management screens, in the navigation pane of the Configuration utility, expand System, and click Software Management. For information about using the Software Management screens, see the online help.
Upgrading from versions earlier than 10.x
You cannot roll forward a configuration directly to this version from BIG-IP version 4.x, or from BIG-IP versions 9.0.x through 9.6.x. You must be running version 10.x software. For details about upgrading to those versions, see the release notes for the associated release.
Fixes in 11.1.0
| ID Number | Description |
|---|---|
| ID 341732 | Running WOM diagnostics now correctly validates the WOM license. |
| ID 365101 | On the Quick Start screen, the Discovery setting is now enabled by default. |
Fixes in 11.0.0
| ID Number | Description |
|---|---|
| ID 223797 | (CR131957) The datastor memory cache size is now 8 GB on the 8900 and 8950 platforms. |
| ID 361676 | The BIG-IP platforms 6900, 8900, 8950, and 11050 using hard drives greater than 500 GB, no longer fail to create a logical volume for datastor when provisioning WOM. To determine what size disk you have, log on to the command-line interface using the root account, and run the command pvscan. |
Known issues
This release contains the following known issues.
| ID Number | Description |
|---|---|
| ID 204432 | (CR109097) The system does not log a warning if local advertised routes conflict with advertised routes on remote endpoints. Having two systems with conflicting routes is most likely a configuration error. |
| ID 223191 | (CR128182) If you remove all remote endpoints from a configuration, any active dashboard continues to show the last remote endpoint as connected. To refresh the screen, close the dashboard and then reopen it. |
| ID 222545 | In the case of an abnormal TCP connection reset, the iSession connection is terminated and reset. While this action is transparent to the user, this action might appear in diagnostics. |
| ID 223434 | (CR129753) For active FTP, the system changes the data ports advertised by the server, so the client might see a different port than the one originally sent by the server. For passive FTP, the system changes the data ports advertised by the client, so the server might see a different port than the one originally sent by the client. In both cases, the data transfers are successful. |
| ID 242092 | (CR132950-1) When the BIG-IP system is under a heavy load, you may see occasional spikes on the Bandwidth Gain graphs on the WAN Optimization dashboard. A system delay in reporting the statistics to the dashboard causes the delay, which is usually about twice the average amount. |
| ID 293593 | (CR132785) If the datastor disk mode is disabled when you provision WAN Optimization Manager along with any other module and then you enable the datastor disk, you must restart the system to show the correct datastor size. |
| ID 335216 | (CR128965) If you use the smbclient (version 3.2 or later) program to get a file, CIFS read optimization does not occur. |
| ID 335217 | (CR130507) If you map a network drive and create a new folder, it takes more than 10 seconds for the folder to appear in the directory and does now allow you to name the folder. To name the folder, right-click it and select rename. |
| ID 342251 | If you are trying to remove the WOM connection between two peers, you must delete the remote endpoint before you delete the local endpoint to prevent reconnection. If you are using the browser interface, the procedure is as follows:
|
| ID 344148 | You must use the same self IP address for IPsec and the WOM local endpoint. |
| ID 346875 | Although the attribute vg-reserved is shown when you issue the command tmsh list sys disk, the attribute is not supported on SSDs, and the system does not reserve the 1024 that is shown. |
| ID 347070 | When you are using IPsec between a BIG-IP WOM pair, both the client-side and server-side BIG-IP WOM systems could try to initiate phase 2 negotiations. To avoid this issue, enable the Passive setting for the IKE peer on the server-side BIG-IP WOM. |
| ID 348741 | If you are upgrading from 10.x to 11.x, and you are rolling over existing WOM configurations, the bzip2 compression option (enabled) is added to all existing iSession profiles. For best performance, after the upgrade, review all iSession profiles to ensure that the compression settings are correct. In some cases, you might want to disable the bzip2 compression option. |
| ID 357551 | The documentation should include a note that to use dynamic discovery of remote endpoints and local subnet discovery, you must set the IP Encapsulation Type to IPsec or None. |
| ID 359075 and ID 359835 | Deprovisioning WOM (for example, changing the provisioning level from Dedicated to None) may require a reboot, even though the reboot prompt may not be visible. |
| ID 361243 | Under certain conditions, Adaptive Compression does not perform as well as a static algorithm. If you experience this issue, in the iSession profile you are using, disable the option Adaptive, and manually select a compression codec. |
| ID 361490 | If a device between the BIG-IP WOM endpoints strips out unknown TCP options, the BIG-IP WOM TCP optimizations may fail to negotiate, which can reduce overall performance. |
| ID 365390 | If the BIG-IP WOM platform you are using has hardware compression, and the intended use case is a single connection, you might see compression performance issues in some scenarios. As a workaround, F5 recommends that you disable hardware compression to achieve better single-connection performance on platforms that support hardware compression. To disable hardware compression, change the Deflate Level setting in the iSession profile to a number greater than or equal to 3, using the browser interface (click , and then click the iSession profile you are using) or the command-line interface (type tmsh modify wom profile isession isession deflate-compression-level 3). |
| ID 368982 | Disabling any virtual server stops traffic from passing through the BIG-IP WOM device, even though other virtual servers may be enabled. To avoid this issue, you can delete the virtual server rather than disabling it. |
| ID 370600 | When IPIP or GRE encapsulation is enabled, disabling and re-enabling a remote endpoint causes it to go down, as indicated by the status (color changes from green to red), and it remains down. |
| ID 371232 | If you have configured WOM Lite as a vCMP guest, when you execute the command tmsh show wom remote-endpoint, the management IP address is blank. The absence of this information does not affect functionality. |
| ID 371251 | If you have configured WOM Lite as a vCMP guest, the system reports an inaccurate management IP address when you execute the command tmsh show wom local-endpoint. The inaccuracy of this information does not affect functionality. |
| ID 371309 | In some configurations, such as when you have manually configured the remote endpoints, and have enabled remote endpoint and subnet discovery, passing traffic through a TCP optimization virtual server (such as http_optimize) causes the discovered route to appear on the Advertised Routes List screen of the client-side WOM device, instead of the server-side WOM device. |
| ID 371323 | When connecting a BIG-IP WOM or WOM Lite device to a VIPRION-clustered WOM Lite peer, the system reports the blade's management IP address, rather than the cluster's primary floating IP address, when you execute the command tmsh show wom remote-endpoint. |
| ID 371327 | When you configure a BIG-IP WOM device as one of a redundant pair, the list of advertised routes for the pair does not appear on the Remote Advertised Routes screen of the BIG-IP WOM peer on the other side of the WAN. |
| ID 371361 | When you run WOM connection diagnostics on a cluster that includes WOM Lite, either from the browser interface or the command-line interface, the process fails after the remote peer verification. |
| ID 371362 | When you run the WOM configuration diagnostics, either from the browser interface or the command-line interface, the Runtime Configuration Checks fail to display the Endpoint UUID, and instead report [none]. |
| ID 371390 | When you are using WOM Lite on a VIPRION platform, the dashboard Optimizations - Compression graph might display No Codec, even when compression is actually occurring. |
| ID 371996 | When you delete a local endpoint, the iSession listener (terminating virtual server) remains, which can cause the configuration load to fail. To delete this virtual server, click , and delete the virtual server from the list. |
Contacting F5 Networks
| Phone: | (206) 272-6888 |
| Fax: | (206) 272-6802 |
| Web: | http://support.f5.com |
| Email: | support@f5.com |
For additional information, please visit http://www.f5.com.
