Automate BIG-IP VE
Deployments with F5’s
Next Generation Cloud
Solution Templates
At the click of a button, automatically onboard and configure BIG-IP VEs while
building out all the necessary cloud networking and infrastructure resources
required for your application.
SOLUTION OVERVIEW
Automate BIG-IP VE Deployments with F5’s Next Generation Cloud Solution Templates
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The Challenge: Growing Need for Automation
It’s no secret that cloud adoption continues to grow at an unprecedented rate as digital
transformation accelerates within practically every industry. More and more applications
are being migrated to the cloud while companies are simultaneously building innovative
new apps designed to give them a competitive edge. Regardless of whether the cloud
apps in question are migrated or net-new, they must all be kept secure, performant, and
available, which means attaching a number of advanced application services during the
cloud deployment process. From load balancing and SSL ooad to web application security
and access management, the process of spinning up and configuring these services is
often complex and time consuming in today’s multi-cloud world. This is only augmented
by individual cloud providers oering disparate toolsets, applications having highly unique
security and compliance requirements, and individual teams wielding dierent technical
skillsets. When you add in the constant executive pressure to bolster security and optimize
user experience while also lowering deployment times, you end up landing close to the
perfect storm.
The Solution: F5’s Second Generation Cloud
Solution Templates (CST2)
As with any new environment, selecting the most appropriate architecture, tooling, and
operational requirements can be daunting. While F5 recommends standardizing on popular
IaaS tools like Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, etc., which have their own learning curves and
some additional pre-requisites, F5’s Cloud Solution Templates provide an alternative, tool-
less deployment option for evaluating BIG-IP Virtual Edition instances and architectures.
With minimal requirements and the click of button, users can deploy fully onboarded BIG-IPs
configured with application services and complete with all the necessary cloud networking
and infrastructure resources required for an application. By leveraging cloud native resource
management services provided by cloud platforms, these Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC)
templates enable the instantiation of BIG-IP VEs across various topologies in a matter of
minutes. More specifically, these templates are:
• AWS CloudFormation —Templates for Amazon AWS
• Azure Resource Manager—Templates for Microsoft Azure
• Google Deployment Manager—Templates for Google Cloud
Info for users of F5’s 1st generation Cloud Solution Templates: CST2 is the 2nd generation of F5’s Cloud Solution
Templates and will replace the first-generation templates in due course. In addition to adopting a new modular/
nested architecture, CST2 also boasts a new run-time component for configuring BIG-IP that can be deployed
by any orchestration tool (such as Ansible or Terraform) to provide an automated, touch-free way of installing and
deploying the F5 Automation Toolchain at BIG-IP run time. The new verified CST2 templates will also enable greater
customization and make it easier to find and test-drive full-stack BIG-IP VE deployments.
KEY BENEFITS
Reduced deployment time
Deploy complex solutions in
minutes with F5® Cloud Solution
Templates.
Multi-cloud template parity
Templates for all cloud platforms
improves flexibility and portability.
Automation/orchestration
of application services
Pair with third-party automation
tools for autonomous application
service configuration.
Self-service for developers/
app team
Empower developers to deploy
at their own pace without security
risks.
Deployment confidence
Cloud Solution Templates are
tested extensively to reduce the
risk of human error.
Free and open source
Templates are free to use and can
be modified to suit your needs.
Automate BIG-IP VE Deployments with F5’s Next Generation Cloud Solution Templates
3
How Do They Work?
Simply put, Cloud Solution Templates are declarations of the various cloud resources needed
to make up an application stack. At the highest level there are two types of CST2 templates—
Parent templates and Child templates—both of which are required for a successful
deployment. In the same way that an Ansible playbook calls on various plays to execute
an operation, Parent templates call on various Child templates to execute dierent aspects
of a deployment. Parent templates are responsible for detailing the general deployment
architecture that is desired, while Child templates provide the various resources required,
including the cloud networking and infrastructure, ingress routing, IAM, security rules and
BIG-IP configurations. Combined, the Parent template launches Child templates to create
a full-stack and fully operational cloud environment. Below you will find summaries of the
dierent Parent and Child templates available:
PARENT TEMPLATES: DEFINE YOUR PREFERRED BIG-IP VE
ARCHITECTURE
The following BIG-IP VE topologies are available:
• Quickstart—The Parent template deploys a standalone BIG-IP VE instance with LTM
and WAF enabled and provisioned via F5’s Automation Tool Chain. This solution
provides a quick login to a fully configured BIG-IP capable of passing trac and
intended for first-time users or those who want to test-drive or explore a working
BIG-IP deployment.
• Failover (Coming soon)—The Failover Parent template deploys two or more BIG-IP VE
instances in a traditional Active/Standby HA configuration, whereby, in the event of an
instance failover, trac will be redirected to the standby BIG-IP VE by remapping IP
addresses and other routing information. This solution is intended for test-driving the
most common deployment topology for BIG-IP VE’s in production environment, as it
provides increased redundancy and application uptime.
Parent
Template
Deployment
Child Templates
(Inputs Template
Parameter)
Administrator
Figure 1: Conceptual Cloud Solution
Template flow.
Automate BIG-IP VE Deployments with F5’s Next Generation Cloud Solution Templates
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• Autoscaling—The Autoscaling template leverages cloud native scaling services (AWS
Auto Scaling Groups, Azure Scales Sets, etc.) to automatically provision or retract BIG-IP
VE instances as usage fluctuates based on pre-defined trac thresholds. This architecture
is often used with highly dynamic environments where application usage can vary
greatly during dierent time periods. Unlike previous solutions, CST2 leverages the more
traditional autoscale configuration management pattern where each instance is created
with an identical configuration and managed exclusively via the Autoscaler’s model.
Scaling is also no longer restricted to the smaller limitations of BIG-IP's clustering (DSC).
QUICKSTART FAILOVER AUTOSCALING
AWS Coming soon
Azure Coming soon
Google Cloud Coming soon
In addition to outlining the BIG-IP VE architecture, Parent Templates also define the preferred
licensing model for those VEs. Depending on your consumption model, the BIG-IP VEs
deployed by these Parent Templates can be licensed in one of three ways:
• BYOL—Input your Bring-Your-Own-License (BYOL) license keys manually.
• PAYG —Use Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) instances, which are self-licensing.
• BIG-IQ—Leverage BIG-IQ to automatically license instances with your BYOL
registration keys.
CHILD TEMPLATES: DEFINE ALL OTHER ASPECTS OF
YOUR DEPLOYMENT
The following Child Templates can be linked within the chosen Parent Template to specify
other deployment requirements:
• Network Template—The Network Template is responsible for creating the cloud
environment in which your deployment will be housed, including both the virtual
network and any subnets required.
• Application Template—The Application Template is used to deploy an example
application used for demonstrating live trac. The template takes a container name as
input and deploys on a single instance or autoscale group depending on the solution.
• Access Template—The Access Template creates identity and access related resources
(for example, Azure Managed Identities, AWS IAM roles, GCP’s service accounts)
required for advanced solutions. This template enables easy secrets management
(using Azure Key Vault, AWS KMS, GCP Secret Manager, or similar) as well as
implementation of any special permissions needed for solutions like failover, service
discovery, telemetry, and others.
Figure 2: Availability of Parent
Templates for each major cloud
environment.
Automate BIG-IP VE Deployments with F5’s Next Generation Cloud Solution Templates
5
• Dag/Ingress Template—The Dag/Ingress Template creates any additional cloud
resources that may be needed to route trac to the BIG-IP VE. This could include
Public IPs, cloud-native load balancers and security groups.
• BIG-IP Template—These BIG-IP templates are responsible for deploying the BIG-IP
VE instance(s) in the desired topology within your cloud environment. It also leverages
a deployment tool called BIG-IP Runtime Init which uses a number of inputs including
Automation Toolchain declarations and application secrets to boot and automatically
configure the BIG-IP VE instance(s).
EXAMPLE DEPLOYMENT: BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
Consider a scenario where a company is migrating their apps to Microsoft Azure to improve
scalability. To achieve this, the operations teams and cloud architects have outlined an agreed
upon architecture which consists of a virtual network containing two subnets (one external and
one internal):
• The external subnet contains an Azure Load Balancer with a public IP address. This,
in turn, is distributing trac to autoscaling BIG-IP VEs that are fully configured and
operational within a VM Scale Set and pass trac to the applications.
• The internal subnet houses these applications
They also wish to use Azure AD for Managed Identity to seamlessly deliver the BIG-IP
password as a secret to the BIG-IP VEs once spun up. After choosing the appropriate
Parent template (Autoscaling), the diagram below highlights which of the subsequent Child
Templates would execute each component of the desired deployment using parameters
provided by the template admin.
AZURE
VIRTUAL NETWORK
EXTERNAL SUBNET INTERNAL SUBNET
Public IP: 10.0.0.0
Users
Azure Load
Balancer
VM Scale Set
BIG-IP
VE
BIG-IP
VE
BIG-IP
VE
Network Template
Ingress Template
BIG-IP Template
Application Template
Access Template
Azure AD Management Identity • Azure Key Vault • BIG-IP Password (secret)
Figure 3: Arcitectural view of an
example Autoscaling Template
deployment.
Automate BIG-IP VE Deployments with F5’s Next Generation Cloud Solution Templates
6
Cloud architects would take days to build this relatively complex set-up from the ground up,
but by leveraging these templates the solution could be implemented, operational, and test-
driven in less than 20 minutes.
Benefits of Cloud Solution Templates
• Reduced deployment time—Agility in the cloud is crucial to enhancing business
performance. Complex cloud solutions that could take days or weeks to configure
manually can be deployed in minutes using these templates. Even experienced cloud
architects can use these templates to reduce solution implementation time by up to 80%,
enabling precious working hours to be re-allocated to more pressing business matters.
• Automation/orchestration of application services—As cloud architectures evolve and
become more multifaceted, there is increased need for orchestration and automation
to support faster, more reliable operations. When integrated with 3rd party automation
tools such as Terraform and Ansible, F5’s Cloud Solution Templates can be leveraged
to enable fully orchestrated, end-to-end workflows, allowing F5 services to be
autonomously spun-up and configured without the need for human interjection.
• Deployment confidence—F5’s Cloud Solution Templates provide tested/validated
examples to help test-drive BIP-IP in common deployments. They can serve as a
valuable working baseline from which you can customize to meet your organizations
particular needs.
• Multi-cloud template parity—Intense competition between cloud vendors is triggering
price wars and fast-paced evolution of cloud native services. For this reason, many
businesses are reluctant to commit entirely to one cloud platform, giving them
flexibility to pursue a better deal or new innovative service. F5 oers near-identical
Cloud Solution Templates for each major cloud provider, allowing for fast, automated
replication of deployments across cloud platforms.
• Self-service for developers/app teams—Operations teams are sometimes viewed as
the bottleneck in the deployment process by developers as they wait for necessary
application services to be built and configured. F5’s Cloud Solution Templates allow
operations teams to enable developers to deploy their own application services by
filling out the appropriate template. This empowers developers to deploy at their
own pace while staying within the security and compliance guidelines outlined by
operations teams.
• Free and open source—All of the templates F5 provides are completely free and
available to everybody. These templates are also open source, so users can modify
them as needed to meet their individual requirements.
©2021 F5, Inc. All rights reserved. F5, and the F5 logo are trademarks of F5, Inc. in the U.S. and in certain other countries. Other F5 trademarks are identified at f5.com.
Any other products, services, or company names referenced herein may be trademarks of their respective owners with no endorsement or aliation, expressed or implied, claimed by F5, Inc.
DC1021 | OV-CLOUD-762427265
Conclusion
The process of manually deploying and configuring application services can be daunting, time
consuming, and prone to human error, making it unsustainable when driving towards fully
automated cloud environments. With F5’s Cloud Solution Templates, F5’s application services
can be spun-up across a variety of cloud platforms automatically and in a fraction of the time.
Designed and fully tested by F5 engineers, these templates enable anyone to deploy their
application services with absolute confidence, whether they are relatively inexperienced or
BIG-IP superusers.
All F5 Cloud Solution Templates can be used in conjunction with F5’s Virtual Edition free trial
licenses. It has never been easier to become familiar with the world’s most trusted set of
application services.
More Information
For more information about how F5 Cloud Solution Templates can help your business, please
visit these resources:
2nd Generation Cloud Solution Templates (CST2):
F5 GitHub—CloudFormation Templates for AWS (CST2)
F5 GitHub—Azure Resource Manager Templates for Microsoft Azure (CST2)
F5 GitHub—Google Deployment Manager Templates for Google Cloud (CST2)
Legacy Cloud Solution Templates:
F5 GitHub—CloudFormation Templates for AWS (Legacy)
F5 GitHub—Azure Resource Manager Templates for Microsoft Azure (Legacy)
F5 GitHub—Google Deployment Manager Templates for Google Cloud (Legacy)
ALL F5 CLOUD SOLUTION
TEMPLATES CAN BE USED
IN CONJUNCTION WITH
F5’S VIRTUAL EDITION
FREE TRIAL LICENSES.
IT’S NEVER BEEN EASIER
TO BECOME FAMILIAR
WITH THE WORLD’S
MOST TRUSTED SET OF
APPLICATION SERVICES.
