Overview
This course introduces network administrators, operators, and DevOps engineers to the foundational and F5-specific technologies required to automate BIG-IP. Participants will gain exposure to multiple technologies for a variety of use cases and will have hands-on experience that leave them better prepared to automate the onboarding and configuration of BIG-IP.
Course Topics
- Review the Linux Command Line
- Review BIG-IP Application Creation
- Discuss Automation and DevOps Concepts
- Configuring BIG-IP with iControl REST
- Automating BIG-IP configuration with Application Services Extension 3 (AS3)
- Automating BIG-IP onboarding with Declarative Onboarding (DO)
Audience
This course is intended for network administrators and operators and DevOps engineers interested in automating tasks on BIG-IP systems in their public and private Clouds as well as in their datacenter infrastructure.
Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with and be able to configure basic BIG-IP elements such as:
- Virtual Servers
- Pools, Pool Members and Nodes
- Pool Monitors
- Basic Virtual Server Profiles
Students should also be familiar with the basics of the Linux command line. In addition, the following general technical knowledge should be well understood:
- Layer 2 Ethernet and ARP networking concepts
- Layer 3 and 4 TCP/IP networking concepts, including IP addressing and subnetting
- Layer 7 HTTP networking concepts
- Linux command line and basic Linux commands
- HTML
Finally, nice-to-have knowledge includes familiarity with programming and/or scripting languages, such as:
- JavaScript or NodeJS
- Python
- Bash
Delegates will learn how to
Course Objectives
- Review Automation and DevOps concepts
- Describe the components of iControl REST calls and how they interact with BIG-IP
- Stand up and configure BIG-IP applications using iControl REST
- Describe the installation and use of AS3 and DO iApp LX components
- Automate the onboarding and configuration of BIG-IP
- Add advanced tools like Postman and Newman to your toolkit
Outline
Chapter 1: Linux Command Line Review
- Navigating the Linux File System
- Creating and Deleting Files and Directories
- Copying and Moving Files
- Command Line Auto-Completion and Editing
- Tools for Analyzing Test Results and Inspecting Log Files
Chapter 2: BIG-IP Application Creation Review
- Understanding Load Balancing Basics
- Configuring Virtual Servers, Pools, Pool Members and Nodes
- Configuring Health Monitors and SSL Profiles
- Understanding the Full Proxy Architecture and Source Address Translation
Chapter 3: Automation and DevOps Concepts
- Understanding Infrastructure as Code, NetOps and DevOps
- Differentiating Automation and Orchestration Concepts
- Diving into DevOps Concepts such as Idempotency, Atomicity and Imperative vs Declarative
Chapter 4: Programming BIG-IP with iControl REST
- Introducing Basic JavaScript Types
- Introducing JavaScript Object Notation
- Discovering an existing BIG-IP Configuration using iControl REST
- Deploying Apps on BIG-IP using iControl REST
- Onboarding BIG-IP using iControl REST
- Working with JSON Programmatically
Chapter 5: Automating BIG-IP with AS3
- Introducing BIG-IP Applications Services Extension 3
- Creating BIG-IP Applications using AS3 with Curl
- Introducing Postman and Postman Tests
- Creating BIG-IP Applications using AS3 with Postman
- Using Newman and the Linux CLI to Create BIG-IP Applications with AS3
Chapter 6: Onboarding BIG-IP with DO
- Introducing Declarative Onboarding for BIG-IP
- Remotely Installing the Declarative Onboarding iApp LX
- Onboarding BIG-IP Declaratively
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