RichardParry
IS-IT--Management
Hi All,
I've been given the opportunity to acquire an F5 Big IP 8900 Series LTM for a great price. I understand this is running the v11.x LTM.
This particular model is very high-end, has dual PSU's, dual mirrored HDD' for the OS, 16x Gigabit copper ports, 8x Gigabit SFP ports and 2x 10GbE SFP+ ports.
My question is quite simple - Can these be used as a simple Layer 2 switch?
I have done a lot of research and it seems it could do this. By default it appears the LTM software runs a different VLAN on each interface, but it is no problem to have multiple interfaces set on the same VLAN. It appears they are set in bridge mode by default too, so will forward all Layer 2 traffic. In principle this means I can use the Ethernet ports as a simple switch.
In time I will be looking to use some of the Layer 4 features, such as WAN load balancing and potentially application based load balancing to give some redundancy internally. I may also use some Layer 3 routing too.
Any ideas?
Thanks! Richard
I've been given the opportunity to acquire an F5 Big IP 8900 Series LTM for a great price. I understand this is running the v11.x LTM.
This particular model is very high-end, has dual PSU's, dual mirrored HDD' for the OS, 16x Gigabit copper ports, 8x Gigabit SFP ports and 2x 10GbE SFP+ ports.
My question is quite simple - Can these be used as a simple Layer 2 switch?
I have done a lot of research and it seems it could do this. By default it appears the LTM software runs a different VLAN on each interface, but it is no problem to have multiple interfaces set on the same VLAN. It appears they are set in bridge mode by default too, so will forward all Layer 2 traffic. In principle this means I can use the Ethernet ports as a simple switch.
In time I will be looking to use some of the Layer 4 features, such as WAN load balancing and potentially application based load balancing to give some redundancy internally. I may also use some Layer 3 routing too.
Any ideas?
Thanks! Richard
