Manual Chapter : BIG-IQ High Availability

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Cloud and Orchestration

  • 1.0.0
Manual Chapter

About setting up a high availability cluster

You can ensure that the traffic management function is always available by configuring two or more BIG-IP® systems in a high availability (HA) configuration. Any configuration change that occurs on one BIG-IP system is immediately synchronized with its peer devices. If one BIG-IP® system in an HA configuration fails, a peer BIG-IP system takes over the traffic management.

The BIG-IP HA cluster that you create with this process is a single failover group that uses the default traffic group and automatic sync. For a complete discussion of the significance of these details, refer to the BIG-IP® Device Service Clustering: Administration guide, which is available on http://support.f5.com/kb/en-us.html.

The BIG-IQ device facilitates the integration between Cisco APIC and the HA cluster. The work flow for configuring this integration takes you back and forth between the two participants in this integration.

Configuring a high availability configuration

You must perform basic system setup and activate a license on two or more BIG-IQ® systems before you can configure a high availability cluster.

Configuring BIG-IQ® Cloud as part of a high availability (HA) cluster ensures that you do not lose management capability of the BIG-IP® devices in your network because one BIG-IQ Cloud system fails.

Important: Do not confuse the BIG-IQ HA cluster you create in this process with a BIG-IP device cluster. Although the concept is similar, this process creates a cluster of BIG-IQ devices. BIG-IP HA cluster configuration is a separate process.
Note: Configuring an HA cluster is an optional task in this process.

If you have a primary BIG-IQ system (it can either be brand new, or one that you have been using for a while), and you want to add one or more new BIG-IQ Cloud systems as backup, you simply add the new systems to the primary system's cm-cloud-all-big-iqs group.

Important: To synchronize properly, the BIG-IQ systems must be running the same version of software. The exact configuration in terms of hardware is not required; however, the systems should have comparable resources. This is required because, in the event of a fail over, the peer must be able to maintain the process requirements for both systems. This is especially important in terms of disk space and data collection.
Important: The device that you add as an HA peer must be in an unconfigured state. That is, you should complete only the basic setup tasks. Specifying configuration details beyond those covered in the licensing and initial configuration process is likely to complicate the synching process.
  1. Log in to BIG-IQ® Cloud with the administrator user name and password.
  2. In System, hover over the BIG-IQ Systems header, and click the + icon when it appears.
    The New Device screen opens.
  3. In the IP Address field, type the BIG-IQ System's self IP address.
  4. In the User name and Password fields, type the administrative user name and password for the system.
  5. For the Group setting, select HA Peer Group.
  6. Click the Add button to add this device to this high availability cluster.
The system discovers its peer and displays its status.

If discovery of the newly configured BIG-IQ system fails, a Delete button displays. Verify the correct self IP address and credentials. Then click the Delete button to remove the incorrect information, and re-type the self IP address, user name, and password.