Setup guide

Deployment of BIG-IP VE on VMware
To deploy the BIG-IP
®
VE system on a VMware ESX
®
or ESXi
®
, you need to perform these tasks:
• Verify the host machine requirements.
• Deploy an instance of the BIG-IP system as a virtual machine (VM) on a host system.
• Power on the BIG-IP VE virtual machine.
• Assign a management IP address to the BIG-IP VE virtual machine.
After you complete these tasks, you can log in to the BIG-IP VE system and run the Setup utility. Using
the Setup utility, you can perform basic network conguration tasks, such as assigning VLANs to interfaces.
Host machine requirements and recommendations
There are specic requirements for the host system to run successfully on the BIG-IP
®
VE system.
To successfully deploy and run the BIG-IP VE system, the host system requires:
• VMware ESX 4.0 or 4.1, or ESXi 4.0 or 4.1 with update 1
• VMware vSphere
™
Client
• Connection to a common NTP source (this is especially important for each host in a redundant system
conguration)
Important: The hypervisor CPU must meet the following requirements:
• use 64 bit architecture
• support for virtualization (AMD-V
™
or Intel
®
VT-x) must be enabled
• support a one-to-one thread-to-dened virtual CPU ratio, or (on single-threading architectures) support
at least one core per dened virtual CPU
• Intel processors must be from the Core (or newer) workstation or server family of CPUs
Deploying the BIG-IP VE virtual machine
The rst steps in deploying BIG-IP
®
Virtual Edition (VE) are to download and extract the Zip le to your
local system. Next, you can run the Deploy OVF Template wizard from within the VMware vSsphere
™
Client. Note that the Zip le contains a virtual disk image based on an Open Virtual Format (OVF) template.
Follow the steps in this procedure to create an instance of the BIG-IP system that runs as a virtual machine
on the host system.
Important: Do not modify the conguration of the VMware guest environment with settings less powerful
than the ones recommended in this document. This includes the settings for the CPU, RAM, and network
adapters. Doing so might produce unexpected results.
1.
In a browser, open the F5 Downloads page (https://downloads.f5.com).
2.
Download the BIG-IP VE le package ending with scsi.ova.zip.
3.
Extract the les from the Zip archive.
4.
From the File menu, choose Deploy OVF Template.
The Deploy OVF Template wizard starts.
5.
In the Source pane, click Deploy from le, and, using the Browse button, locate the OVA le.
10
Deploying BIG-IP Virtual Edition