DELL EMC ECS Reference Manual
DELL EMC ECS WITH F5
Deployment Reference Guide
February 2021
A Dell EMC Whitepaper
Internal Use - Confidential
Date
Description
August 2017
Initial release
October 2017
Corrected initial release date year to 2017 from 2016
June 2018
Clarified S3Ping unauthenticated - no credentials required
Revisions
The information in this publication is provided “as is.” Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this
publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Use, copying, and distribution of any software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.
Copyright © 2021 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other
trademarks may be the property of their respective owners. Published in the USA [2/17/2021] [Whitepaper] [H16294.3]
Dell believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.
This document may contain language from third party content that is not under Dell's control and is not consistent with Dell's current guidelines for Dell's
own content. When such third-party content is updated by the relevant third parties, this document will be revised accordingly.
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Table of contents
Revisions............................................................................................................................................................................. 2
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 Audience ............................................................................................................................................................ 4
1.2 Scope ................................................................................................................................................................. 4
2 ECS Overview .............................................................................................................................................................. 5
2.1 ECS Constructs.................................................................................................................................................. 6
3 F5 Overview ................................................................................................................................................................. 8
3.1 F5 Networking Constructs .................................................................................................................................. 9
3.2 F5 Traffic Management Constructs.................................................................................................................. 11
3.3 F5 Device Redundancy .................................................................................................................................... 13
4 ECS Configuration ...................................................................................................................................................... 15
5 F5 Configuration ......................................................................................................................................................... 19
5.1 F5 BIG-IP LTM ................................................................................................................................................. 19
5.1.1 Example: S3 to Single VDC with Active/Standby LTM Pair ............................................................................ 20
5.1.2 Example: LTM-terminated SSL Communication ............................................................................................. 30
5.1.3 Example: NFS via LTM .................................................................................................................................... 35
5.1.4 Example: Geo-affinity via iRule on LTM .......................................................................................................... 43
5.2 F5 BIG-IP DNS................................................................................................................................................. 47
5.2.1 Example: Roaming Client Geo Environment ................................................................................................... 53
5.2.2 Example: Application Traffic Management for XOR Efficiency Gains ............................................................. 54
6 Best Practices............................................................................................................................................................. 55
7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................. 56
8 References ................................................................................................................................................................. 57
A Creating a Custom S3 Monitor ................................................................................................................................... 58
B BIG-IP DNS and LTM CLI Configuration Snippets ..................................................................................................... 61
B.1 BIG-IP DNS ...................................................................................................................................................... 61
B.1.1 bigip.conf .......................................................................................................................................................... 61
B.1.2 bigip_base.conf................................................................................................................................................. 61
B.1.3 bigip_gtm.conf .................................................................................................................................................. 62
B.2 BIG-IP LTM ...................................................................................................................................................... 65
B.2.1 bigip.conf .......................................................................................................................................................... 65
B.2.2 bigip_base.conf................................................................................................................................................. 68
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1 Introduction
The explosive growth of unstructured data and cloud-native applications has created demand for scalable
cloud storage infrastructure in the modern datacenter. ECS
EMC™ designed from the ground up to take advantage of modern cloud storage APIs and distributed data
protection, providing active/active availability spanning multiple datacenters.
Managing application traffic both locally and globally can provide high availability (HA) and efficient use of
ECS storage resources. HA is obtained by directing application traffic to known-to-be-available local or global
storage resources. Optimal efficiency can be gained by balancing application load across local storage
resources.
Organizations often choose F5® BIG-IP® DNS (formerly Global Traffic Manager™) and Local Traffic
Manager™ (LTM®) products to manage client traffic between and within data centers. BIG-IP authoritatively
resolves domain names such as s3.dell.com or nfs.emc.com. BIG-IP DNS systems return IP addresses with
the intent to direct stateless client sessions to an ECS system at a particular data center based on monitoring
the availability and performance of individual ECS data center locations, nodes, and client locations. LTMs
can apply load balancing services based on availability, performance, and persistence, to proxy client traffic to
an ECS node.
TM
is the third generation object store by Dell
1.1 Audience
This document is targeted for customers interested in a reference deployment of ECS with F5.
1.2 Scope
This whitepaper is meant to be a reference guide for deploying F5 with ECS. An external load balancer
(traffic manager) is highly recommended with ECS for applications that do not proactively monitor ECS node
availability or natively manage traffic load to ECS nodes. Directing application traffic to ECS nodes using
local DNS queries, as opposed to a traffic manager, can lead to failed connection attempts to unavailable
nodes and unevenly distributed application load on ECS.
The ECS HDFS client, CAS SDK and ECS S3 API extensions are outside of the scope of this paper. The
ECS HDFS client, which is required for Hadoop connectivity to ECS, handles load balancing natively.
Similarly, the Centera Software Development Kit for CAS access to ECS has a built-in load balancer. The
ECS S3 API also has extensions leveraged by certain ECS S3 client SDKs which allow for balancing load to
ECS at the application level.
Dell EMC takes no responsibility for customer load balancing configurations. All customer networks are
unique, with their own requirements. It’s extremely important for customers to configure their load balancers
according to their own circumstance. We only provide this paper as a guide. F5 or a qualified network
administrator should be consulted before making any changes to your current load balancer configuration.
Related to the BIG-IP DNS and LTM, and outside this paper’s scope, is the BIG-IP Application Acceleration
Manager™ that provides encrypted, accelerated WAN optimization service. F5’s BIG-IP Advanced Firewall
Manager™ which provides network security and DDoS mitigation services, is also outside of the scope of this
paper.
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Transport Protocol or
Daemon Service
HTTP
9020
HTTPS
9021
HTTP
9022
HTTPS
9023
HTTP
9024
HTTPS
9025
portmap
111
mountd, nfsd
2049
lockd
10000
2 ECS Overview
ECS provides a complete software-defined strongly-consistent, indexed, cloud storage platform that supports
the storage, manipulation, and analysis of unstructured data on a massive scale. Client access protocols
include S3, with additional Dell EMC extensions to the S3 protocol, Dell EMC Atmos, Swift, Dell EMC CAS
(Centera), NFS, and HDFS. Object access for S3, Atmos, and Swift is achieved via REST APIs. Objects are
written, retrieved, updated and deleted via HTTP or HTTPS calls using REST verbs such as GET, POST,
PUT, DELETE, and HEAD. For file access, ECS provides NFS version 3 natively and a Hadoop Compatible
File System (HCFS).
ECS was built as a completely distributed system following the principle of cloud applications. In this model,
all hardware nodes provide the core storage services. Without dedicated index or metadata nodes the
system has limitless capacity and scalability.
Service communication ports are integral in the F5 LTM configuration. See Table 1 below for a complete list
of protocols used with ECS and their associated ports. In addition to managing traffic flow, port access is a
critical piece to consider when firewalls are in the communication path. For more information on ECS ports
refer to the ECS Security Configuration Guide at
Configuration-Guide-.pdf.
https://support.emc.com/docu88141_ECS-3.2-Security-
For a more thorough ECS overview, please review ECS Overview and Architecture whitepaper at
http://www.emc.com/collateral/white-papers/h14071-ecs-architectural-guide-wp.pdf
Table 1 - ECS protocols and associated ports
Protocol
S3
Atmos
Swift
NFS
Port
.
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2.1 ECS Constructs
Understanding the main ECS constructs is necessary in managing application workflow and load balancing.
This section details each of the upper-level ECS constructs.
Figure 1 - ECS upper-level constructs
• Storage pool - The first step in provisioning a site is creating a storage pool. Storage pools form the
basic building blocks of an ECS cluster. They are logical containers for some or all nodes at a site.
ECS storage pools identify which nodes will be used when storing object fragments for data
protection at a site. Data protection at the storage pool level is rack, node, and drive aware. System
metadata, user data and user metadata all coexist on the same disk infrastructure.
Storage pools provide a means to separate data on a cluster, if required. By using storage pools,
organizations can organize storage resources based on business requirements. For example, if
separation of data is required, storage can be partitioned into multiple different storage pools.
Erasure coding (EC) is configured at the storage pool level. The two EC options on ECS are 12+4 or
10+2 (aka cold storage). EC configuration cannot be changed after storage pool creation.
Only one storage pool is required in a VDC. Generally, at most two storage pools should be created,
one for each EC configuration, and only when necessary. Additional storage pools should only be
implemented when there is a use case to do so, for example, to accommodate physical data
separation requirements. This is because each storage pool has unique indexing requirements. As
such, each storage pool adds overhead to the core ECS index structure.
A storage pool should have a minimum of five nodes and must have at least three or more nodes with
more than 10% free space in order to allow writes.
• Virtual Data Center (VDC) - VDCs are the top-level ECS resources and are also generally referred
to as a site or zone. They are logical constructs that represent the collection of ECS infrastructure
you want to manage as a cohesive unit. A VDC is made up of one or more storage pools.
Between two and eight VDCs can be federated. Federation of VDCs centralizes and thereby
simplifies many management tasks associated with administering ECS storage. In addition,
federation of sites allows for expanded data protection domains that include separate locations.
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• Replication Group - Replication groups are logical constructs that define where data is protected
and accessed. Replication groups can be local or global. Local replication groups protect objects
within the same VDC against disk or node failures. Global replication groups span two or more
federated VDCs and protect objects against disk, node, and site failures.
The strategy for defining replication groups depends on multiple factors including requirements for
data resiliency, the cost of storage, and physical versus logical separation of data. As with storage
pools, the minimum number of replication groups required should be implemented. At the core ECS
indexing level, each storage pool and replication group pairing is tracked and adds significant
overhead. It is best practice to create the absolute minimum number of replication groups required.
Generally there is one replication group for each local VDC, if necessary, and one replication group
that contains all sites. Deployments with more than two sites may consider additional replication
groups, for example, in scenarios where only a subset of VDCs should participate in data replication,
but, this decision should not be made lightly.
• Namespace - Namespaces enable ECS to handle multi-tenant operations. Each tenant is defined by
a namespace and a set of users who can store and access objects within that namespace.
Namespaces can represent a department within an enterprise, can be created for each unique
enterprise or business unit, or can be created for each user. There is no limit to the number of
namespaces that can be created from a performance perspective. Time to manage an ECS
deployment, on the other hand, or, management overhead, may be a concern in creating and
managing many namespaces.
• Bucket - Buckets are containers for object data. Each bucket is assigned to one replication group.
Namespace users with the appropriate privileges can create buckets and objects within buckets for
each object protocol using its API. Buckets can be configured to support NFS and HDFS. Within a
namespace, it is possible to use buckets as a way of creating subtenants. It is not recommended to
have more than 1000 buckets per namespace. Generally a bucket is created per application,
workflow, or user.
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3 F5 Overview
The F5 BIG-IP platform is a blend of software and hardware that forms the foundation of the current iteration
of F5’s Application Delivery Controller (ADC) technology. On top of the BIG-IP platform are a suite of
products that provide a wide range of application services. Two of the BIG-IP products often used in building
an organization’s foundation for local and global traffic management include:
• F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) - Local application traffic load balancing based on a full-
proxy architecture.
• F5 BIG-IP DNS (formerly Global Traffic Manager (GTM)) - DNS services for application requests
F5 offers the products in both physical and virtual form. This paper makes no recommendation between
choosing physical or virtual F5 systems. We do recommend that F5 documentation and product
specifications be consulted to properly size F5 systems. Sizing a BIG-IP system should be based on the
cumulative current and projected workload traffic bandwidth (MB/s), quantity of operations (Ops/sec) or
transactions per second (TPS), and concurrent client sessions. Properly sized BIG-IP systems should not
add any significant transactional overhead or limitation to workflows using ECS. The next few paragraphs
briefly describe considerations when sizing ECS and associated traffic managers.
based on user, network, and cloud performance conditions.
There are two components to each transaction with ECS storage, one, metadata operations, and two, data
movement. Metadata operations include both reading and writing or updating the metadata associated with
an object and we refer to these operations as transactional overhead. Every transaction on the system will
have some form of metadata overhead and the size of an object along with the transaction type determines
the associated level of resource utilization. Data movement is required for each transaction also and refers to
the receipt or delivery of client data. We refer to this component in terms of throughput or bandwidth,
generally in megabytes per second (MB/s).
To put this into an equation, response time, or total time to complete a transaction, is the result of the time to
perform the transaction's required metadata operations, or the transaction's transactional overheard, plus, the
time it takes to move the data between client and through ECS, the transaction's data throughput.
Total response time = transactional overhead time + data movement time
For small objects transactional overhead is similar and is the largest, or limiting, factor to performance. Since
every transaction has a metadata component, and the metadata operations have a minimum amount of time
to complete, at objects with similar sizes that component, the transactional overhead, will be similar. On the
other end of the spectrum, for large objects, the transactional overhead is minimal compared to the amount of
time required to physically move the data between client and the ECS system. For larger objects the major
factor in response time is the throughput which is why at certain large object sizes the throughput potential is
similar.
Object size and thread counts, along with transaction type, are the primary factors which dictate performance
on ECS. Because of this in order to size for workloads, object sizes and their transaction types along with
related application thread counts should be cataloged for all workloads that will utilize the ECS system.
BIG-IP DNS and LTM each provide very different functions and can be used together or independently.
When used together BIG-IP DNS can make decisions based on data received directly from LTMs. BIG-IP
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DNS is recommended if you want to either globally distribute application load, or to ensure seamless failover
during site outage conditions where static failover processes are not feasible or desirable. BIG-IP LTM can
manage client traffic based on results of monitoring both network and application layers and is largely
mandatory where performance and client connectivity is required.
With ECS, monitoring application availability to the data services across all ECS nodes is necessary. This is
done using application level queries to the actual data services that handle transactions as opposed to relying
only on lower network or transport queries which only report IP and port availability.
A major difference between BIG-IP DNS and LTM is that traffic flows through an LTM whereas the BIG-IP
DNS only informs a client which IP to route to and does not handle client application data traffic.
3.1 F5 Networking Constructs
A general understanding of the basic BIG-IP network constructs is critical to a successful architecture and
implementation. Here is a list of the most common of the BIG-IP networking constructs:
• Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) - A VLAN is required and associated with each non-
management network interface in use on a BIG-IP system.
• Self IP - F5 terminology for an IP address on a BIG-IP system that is associated with a VLAN, to
access hosts in the VLAN. A self IP represents an address space as determined by the associated
netmask.
• Static self IP - A minimum of one IP address is required for each VLAN in use in a BIG-IP system.
Static self IP addresses are unit-specific in that they are unique to the assigned device. For example,
if two BIG-IP devices are paired together for HA, each device’s configuration will have at least one
self IP for each VLAN. The static self IP configuration is not sync’d or shared between devices.
• Floating self IP - Traffic groups, which are logical containers for virtual servers, can float between
BIG-IP LTM devices. Floating self IP addresses are created similarly to static addresses, except that
they are assigned to a floating traffic group. With this, during failover the self IP floats between
devices. The floating self IP addresses are shared between devices. Each traffic group that is part of
an HA system can use a floating self IP address. When in use the device actively serving the virtual
servers on the traffic group hosts the floating self IP.
• MAC Masquerading Address - An optional virtual layer two Media Access Control (MAC) address,
otherwise known as a MAC masquerade, which floats with a traffic group.
MAC masquerade addresses serve to minimize ARP communications or dropped packets during a
failover event. A MAC masquerade address ensures that any traffic destined for the relevant traffic
group reaches an available device after failover has occurred, because the MAC masquerade
address floats to the available device along with the traffic group. Without a MAC masquerade
address, on failover the sending host must relearn the MAC address for the newly-active device,
either by sending an ARP request for the IP address for the traffic or by relying on the gratuitous ARP
from the newly-active device to refresh its stale ARP entry.
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Figure 2 - HA pair of LTM with physical interfaces, VLAN and self IP addresses
Figure 2 above shows a HA pair of LTM. The physical interfaces as shown are 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3. In addition
each device has a management interface which is not shown. Each interface has an associated VLAN and
self IP address. Floating self IP addresses are created in redundant configurations as is a VLAN dedicated
for HA. Not shown are any MAC masquerading addresses. MAC masquerading addresses are associated
with traffic groups. Traffic groups are explained in the next section on F5 device redundancy.
BIG-IP LTM, like with other Application Delivery Controllers, can be deployed in a variety of deployment
architectures. Two commonly used network deployment architectures are:
1. One-arm - A one-arm deployment is where the LTM has only a single VLAN and interface configured
for application traffic. The LTM both receives and forwards traffic using a single network interface.
The LTM sits on the same subnet as the destination servers. In this scenario applications direct their
traffic to virtual servers on the LTM which use virtual IP addresses that are on the same subnet as the
destination nodes. Traffic received by the LTM is forwarded to the target ECS node.
2. Two-arm - The examples we use throughout this paper are two-arm implementations. A two-arm
deployment is where the LTM sits on the same subnet as the destination servers, as above, but also
listens for the application traffic on an entirely different subnet. The LTM uses two interfaces, each on
unique subnets, to receive and forward traffic. In this scenario two VLANs exist on the LTM, one for
external, client-side traffic, and the other one for internal, server-side traffic. Figure 2 above is an
example of a two-arm architecture.
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Traffic routing between the client, LTM, and ECS nodes is important. Two primary options for routing exist for
the pool members, in our case, ECS nodes:
1. The default route on the ECS nodes point to a self IP address on the LTM. With this, as the nodes
return traffic to the clients, because the default route points to the LTM, traffic will route back to the
clients the same way it came, through the LTM. In our lab setup we set the default route on the ECS
nodes to point to the self IP address on the LTM. For Site 1, our site with a pair of LTMs configured
for HA, we used the floating self IP address as the default gateway. For Site 2, the ECS nodes point
to the self IP address of the single LTM.
2. The default route on the ECS nodes point to an IP address on a device other than the LTM, such
as a router. This is often referred to as Direct Server Return routing. In this scenario application
traffic is received by the node from the LTM, but due to the default route entry, is returned to the client
bypassing the LTM. The routing is asymmetrical and it is possible that clients will reject the return
traffic. LTM may be configured with address and port rewriting disabled which may allow clients to
accept return traffic. F5 documentation or experts should be referenced for detailed understanding.
3.2 F5 Traffic Management Constructs
The key F5 BIG-IP traffic management logical constructs for the BIG-IP DNS and/or LTM are:
• Pool - Pools are logical sets of devices that are grouped together to receive and process traffic.
Pools are used to efficiently distribute load across grouped server resources.
• Virtual server - Virtual servers are a traffic-management object that is represented in the BIG-IP
system by a destination IP address and service port. Virtual servers require one or more pools.
• Virtual address - A virtual address is an IP address associated with a virtual server, commonly
referred to as a VIP (virtual IP). In the BIG-IP system a virtual addresses are generally created by the
BIG-IP system when a virtual server is created. Many virtual servers can share the same IP address.
• Node - A BIG-IP node is a logical object on the BIG-IP system that identifies the IP address or a fully-
qualified domain name (FQDN) of a server that hosts applications. Nodes can be created explicitly or
automatically when a pool member is added to a load balancing pool.
• Pool member - A pool member is a service on a node and is designated by an IP address and
service (port).
• Monitor - Monitors are pre-configured (system provided) or user created associations with a node,
pool, or pool member to determine availability and performance levels. Health or performance
monitors check status on an ongoing basis, at a set interval. Monitors allow intelligent decision
making by BIG-IP LTM to direct traffic away from unavailable or unresponsive nodes, pools, or pool
members. Multiple monitors can be associated with a node, pool, or pool member.
• Data Center - BIG-IP DNS only. All of the BIG-IP DNS resources are associated with a data center.
BIG-IP DNS consolidates the paths and metrics data collected from the servers, virtual servers, and
links in the data center. BIG-IP DNS uses that data to conduct load balancing and route client
requests to the best-performing resource.
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• Wide IP (WIP) - BIG-IP DNS only. Wide IP addresses (WIP) are one of the main BIG-IP DNS
configuration elements. WIP are identified by a fully qualified domain name (FQDN). Each WIP is
configured with one or more pools (global). The global pool members are LTM-hosted virtual servers.
BIG-IP DNS servers act as an authority for the FQDN WIP and return the IP address of the selected
LTM virtual server to use.
• Listener - BIG-IP DNS only. A listener is a specialized virtual server that passively checks for DNS
packets on port 53 and the IP address assigned to the listener. When a DNS query is sent to the IP
address of the listener, BIG-IP DNS either handles the request locally or forwards the request to the
appropriate resource.
• Probe - BIG-IP DNS only. A probe is an action taken by a BIG-IP system to acquire data from other
network resources.
Figure 3 below shows the relationships between applications, virtual servers, pools, pool members (ECS
node services), and health monitors.
Figure 3 - Relationships between LTM, applications, virtual servers, pools, pool members and health monitors
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Figure 4 below shows the BIG-IP Wide IP (FQDN) to global pool member (LTM/site/virtual server)
association.
Figure 4 - BIG-IP Wide IP (FQDN) to global pool member (LTM/site/virtual server) association
3.3 F5 Device Redundancy
The BIG-IP DNS and LTM can be deployed as a standalone device or as a group of two or more identical
devices for redundancy. In the single-device, or standalone scenario, one device handles all application
traffic. The obvious downside with this is that if the device fails applications may experience a complete
interruption in service. In a single-site, single-LTM deployment all application traffic will fail if the LTM
becomes unavailable.
In multiple-site ECS deployments if each site contains a single LTM and a site’s LTM fails, BIG-IP DNS can
direct applications to use the LTM at an alternate site that is a member of the same replication group. So as
long as an application can access storage at non-local sites within an acceptable level of performance, if a
BIG-IP DNS is in use, deploying a single LTM at each site may allow for significant cost savings. That is, so
long as an application is tolerant of any increased latency caused by accessing data using a non-local site,
purchasing two or more LTM for each site may not be necessary, providing that a BIG-IP DNS or global load
balancing mechanism is in place. Understanding the tradeoffs between implementing single or multiple
devices, and the related application performance requirements, is important in developing a deployment best
suited for your needs. Also, an understanding of the concept of object owner on ECS, the access during
outage (ADO) configuration and impact to object accessibility during temporary site outage (TSO) are all
critical to consider when planning for multisite multi-access object namespace. Refer to the ECS Architectural
and Overview whitepaper here for more details:
architectural-guide-wp.pdf.
http://www.emc.com/collateral/white-papers/h14071-ecs-
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BIG-IP HA key constructs are:
• Device trust - Device trust establishes trust relationships between BIG-IP devices through mutual
certificate-based authentication. A trust domain is a collection of BIG-IP devices that trust one
another and is a prerequisite for creating a device group for ConfigSync and failover operations. The
trust domain is represented by a special system-generated and system-managed device group
named device_trust_group, which is used to synchronize trust domain information across all devices.
• Device group - A collection of BIG-IP devices that trust each other and can synchronize, and
sometimes fail over, their BIG-IP configuration data. There are two types of device groups:
1. A Sync-Only device group contains devices that synchronize configuration data, such as policy
data, but do not synchronize failover objects.
2. A Sync-Failover device group contains devices that synchronize configuration data and support
traffic groups for failover purposes when a device becomes unavailable.
• Traffic group - A traffic group is a collection of related configuration objects (such as a floating self IP
address and MAC masquerading address) that run on a BIG-IP system and process a particular type
of application traffic. When a BIG-IP system becomes unavailable, a floating traffic group can migrate
to another device in a device group to ensure that the application traffic being handled by the traffic
group continues to be processed with little to no interruption in service.
With two or more local devices, a logical BIG-IP device group can allow application traffic to be processed by
more than one device. In a HA setup, during service interruption of a BIG-IP device, traffic can be routed to
the remaining BIG-IP device(s) which allows applications to experience little if any interruption to service. The
HA failover type discussed in this paper is sync-failover. This type of failover allows traffic to be routed to
working BIG-IP devices during failure.
There are two redundancy modes available when using the sync-failover type of traffic group. They are:
1. Active/Standby - Two or more BIG-IP DNS or LTM devices belong to a device group. For the BIGIP DNS, only one device actively listens and responds to DNS queries. The other device(s) are in
standby mode and available to take over the active role in a failover event. For the LTM, one device
in each floating traffic group actively processes application traffic. The other devices associated with
the floating traffic group are in standby mode and available to take over the active role in a failover
event.
2. Active/Active - Two or more LTM devices belong to a device group. Both devices can actively
process application traffic. This is accomplished by creating two or more BIG-IP floating traffic
groups. Each traffic group can contain and processes traffic for one or more virtual servers.
It is key to understand that a single virtual IP address can be shared by many virtual servers,
however, a virtual IP address may only be associated with one traffic group. If for example a pair of
LTMs are configured with many virtual servers that all share the same virtual IP address, all virtual
servers can only be served by one LTM at a time regardless of the redundancy mode configured.
This means in order to distribute application traffic to more than one LTM device, two or more unique
virtual IP addresses must be in use between two or more virtual servers.
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4 ECS Configuration
There is generally no special configuration required to support load balancing strategies within ECS. ECS is
not aware of any BIG-IP DNS or LTM systems and is strictly concerned, and configured with, ECS node IP
addresses, not, virtual addresses of any kind. Regardless of whether the data flow includes a traffic manager,
each application that utilizes ECS will generally have access to one or more buckets within a namespace.
Each bucket belongs to a replication group and it is the replication group which determines both the local and
potentially global protection domain of its data as well as its accessibility. Local protection involves mirroring
and erasure coding data inside disks, nodes, and racks that are contained in an ECS storage pool. Geoprotection is available in replication groups that are configured within two or more federated VDCs. They
extend protection domains to include redundancy at the site level.
Buckets are generally configured for a single object API. A bucket can be an S3 bucket, an Atmos bucket, or
a Swift bucket, and each bucket is accessed using the appropriate object API. As of ECS version 3.2 objects
can be accessed using S3 and/or Swift in the same bucket. Buckets can also be file enabled. Enabling a
bucket for file access provides additional bucket configuration and allows application access to objects using
NFS and/or HDFS.
Application workflow planning with ECS is generally broken down to the bucket level. The ports associated
with each object access method, along with the node IP addresses for each member of the bucket’s local and
remote ECS storage pools, are the target for client application traffic. This information is what is required
during LTM configuration. In ECS, data access is available via any node in any site that serves the bucket.
In directing the application traffic to an F5 virtual address, instead of directly to an ECS node, load balancing
decisions can be made which support HA and provide the potential for improved utility and performance of the
ECS cluster.
The following tables provide the ECS configuration used for application access via S3 and NFS utilizing the
BIG-IP DNS and LTM devices as described in this document. Note the configuration is sufficient for use by
applications whether they connect directly to ECS nodes, they connect to ECS nodes via LTMs, and/or they
are directed to LTMs via a BIG-IP DNS.
In our reference example, two five node ECS VDCs were deployed and federated using the ECS Community
Edition 3.0 software on top of the CentOS 7.x operating system inside a VMWare ESXi lab environment.
Virtual systems were used to ensure readers could successfully deploy a similar environment for testing and
to gain hands-on experience with the products. A critical difference in using virtual ECS nodes, as opposed to
ECS appliances, is that the primary and recommended method for monitoring an S3 service relies upon the
underlying ECS fabric layer which is not in place in virtual systems. Because of this monitoring using the S3
Ping method is shown against physical ECS hardware in Appendix A, Creating a Custom S3 Monitor.
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Site 1 (federated with Site 2)
Storage Pool (SP)
https://192.168.101.11/#/vdc//provisioning/storagePools
Name
s1-ecs1-sp1
ecs-1-1.kraft101.net 192.168.101.11
ecs-1-2.kraft101.net 192.168.101.12
ecs-1-3.kraft101.net 192.168.101.13
ecs-1-4.kraft101.net 192.168.101.14
ecs-1-5.kraft101.net 192.168.101.15
Site 2 (federated with Site 1)
Storage Pool (SP)
https://192.168.102.11/#/vdc//provisioning/storagePools
Name
s2-ecs1-sp1
ecs-2-1.kraft102.net 192.168.102.11
ecs-2-2.kraft102.net 192.168.102.12
ecs-2-3.kraft102.net 192.168.102.13
ecs-2-4.kraft102.net 192.168.102.14
ecs-2-5.kraft102.net 192.168.102.15
Site 1
Virtual Data Center (VDC)
https://192.168.101.11/#/vdc//provisioning/virtualdatacenter
Name
s1-ecs1-vdc1
Replication and Management
Endpoints
192.168.101.11,192.168.101.12,192.168.101.13,192.168.101.14,
192.168.101.15
Site 2
Name
s2-ecs1-vdc1
Replication and Management
Endpoints
192.168.102.11,192.168.102.12,192.168.102.13,192.168.102.14,
192.168.102.15
Replication Group (RG)
https://192.168.101.11/#/vdc//provisioning/replicationGroups//
Name
ecs-rg1-all-sites
s1-ecs1-vdc1: s1-ecs1-sp1
s2-ecs1-vdc1: s2-ecs1-sp1
What follows are several tables with the ECS configuration used in our examples. Each table is preceded by
a brief description.
Each site of the two sites has a single storage pool that contains all five of the site’s ECS nodes.
Table 2 - ECS site’s storage pools
Nodes
Nodes
The first VDC is created at Site 1 after the storage pools have been initialized. A VDC access key is copied
from Site 2 and used to create the second VDC at Site 1 as well.
Table 3 - VDC name and endpoints
A replication group is created and populated with the two VDCs and their storage pools. Data stored using
this replication group is protected both locally, at each site, and globally through replication to the second site.
Applications can access all data in the replication group via any of the nodes in either of the VDC’s associated
storage pool.
Table 4 - Replication group
VDC: SP
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Namespace (NS)
https://192.168.101.11/#/vdc//provisioning/namespace
Name
webapp1
Replication group
ecs-rg1-all-sites
Access During Outage
Enabled
User
https://192.168.101.11/#/vdc//provisioning/users/object
Name
webapp1_user1
NS
webapp1
Object access
S3
User key
Akc0GMp2W4jZyu/07A+HdRjLtamiRp2p8xp3at7b
File user/Group mapping
https://192.168.101.11/#/vdc//provisioning/file/ns1/userMapping/
User
Name: webapp1_user1, ID: 1000, Type: User, NS: webapp1
Group
Name: webapp1_group1, ID: 1000, Type: Group, NS: webapp1
Bucket
https://192.168.101.11/#/vdc//provisioning/buckets/
Name
s3_webapp1
NS: RG
webapp1: ecs-rg1-all-sites
Bucket owner
webapp1_user1
File system
Enabled
Default bucket group
webapp1_group1
Group file permissions
RWX
Group directory permissions
RWX
Access During Outage
Enable
A namespace is created and associated with the replication group. This namespace will be used for S3 and
NFS traffic.
Table 5 - Namespace
An object user is required for accessing the namespace and created as per Table 6 below.
Table 6 - Object user
An NFS user and group are created as shown in Table 7 below. The NFS user is specifically tied to the
object user and namespace created above in Table 6.
Table 7 - NFS user and group
A file-enabled S3 bucket is created inside the previously created namespace using the object user as bucket
owner. The bucket is associated with the namespace and replication group. Table 8 below shows the bucket
configuration.
Table 8 - S3 bucket configuration
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File export
https://10.10.10.101/#/vdc//provisioning/file//exports
Namespace
webapp1
Bucket
s3_webapp1
Export path
/webapp1/s3_webapp1
Export host options
Host: * Summary: rw,async,authsys
DNS records (corresponding reverse entries not shown but are required)
DNS record entry
Record type
Record data
Comments
ecs-1-1.kraft101.net
A
192.168.101.11
Public interface node 1 ecs1 site1
ecs-1-2.kraft101.net
A
192.168.101.12
Public interface node 2 ecs1 site1
ecs-1-3.kraft101.net
A
192.168.101.13
Public interface node 3 ecs1 site1
ecs-1-4.kraft101.net
A
192.168.101.14
Public interface node 4 ecs1 site1
ecs-1-5.kraft101.net
A
192.168.101.15
Public interface node 5 ecs1 site1
ecs-2-1.kraft102.net
A
192.168.102.11
Public interface node 1 ecs1 site2
ecs-2-2.kraft102.net
A
192.168.102.12
Public interface node 2 ecs1 site2
ecs-2-3.kraft102.net
A
192.168.102.13
Public interface node 3 ecs1 site2
ecs-2-4.kraft102.net
A
192.168.102.14
Public interface node 4 ecs1 site2
ecs-2-5.kraft102.net
A
192.168.102.15
Public interface node 5 ecs1 site2
To allow for access to the bucket by NFS clients, a file export is created as per Table 9 below.
Table 9 - NFS export configuration
Table 10 below lists the DNS records for the ECS nodes. The required reverse lookup entries are not shown.
Table 10 - DNS records for ECS nodes and Site 1 and Site 2
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5 F5 Configuration
Two configuration sections follow, the first for BIG-IP LTM and the second for BIG-IP DNS. Each section
provides a couple examples along with the reference architecture. Context around related deployment
options are also mentioned.
We make the assumption that whether BIG-IP devices are deployed in isolation or as a group, the general
guidelines provided are the same. F5 documentation should be reviewed so that any differences between
deploying single and redundant devices are understood.
All of the examples provided use the ECS VDCs as configured in the tables above. The examples provided
were deployed in a lab environment using the ECS Community Edition, v3.0, and virtual F5 edition, version
13.0.0 (Build 2.0.1671 HF2). Unlike above in the ECS configuration section, steps are provided in the
examples below on how to configure the F5 BIG-IP traffic management constructs. We do not provide BIG-IP
base configuration steps such as licensing, naming, NTP, and DNS.
For each site BIG-IP LTM is deployed and configured to balance the load to ECS nodes. In federated ECS
deployments a BIG-IP DNS can be used to direct application traffic to the most suitable site.
5.1 F5 BIG-IP LTM
Figure 5 - LTM high-level overview
A local traffic manager, as seen in the middle of Figure 5 above, listens and receives client application traffic
on one or more virtual servers. Virtual servers are generally identified by a FQDN and port, for example,
s3.site1.ecstme.org:9020. Virtual servers process traffic for either one service port, or all service ports.
Virtual servers are backed by one or more pools. The pools have members assigned to them. The pool
members consist of ECS nodes and identified by their hostname and port, for example, ecs-1-1:9020. The
configuration determines whether all traffic is directed to a specific port on pool members or whether the port
of the original request is kept.
An LTM makes a decision for each application message it receives on a virtual server to determine which
specific pool member in the virtual server’s configured pool(s) should receive the message. The LTM uses
the configured load balancing algorithm to make this determination.
The LTM uses health monitors to keep an up-to-date status of all individual pool members and their relevant
services. As a node or node’s required service(s) become unavailable the LTM ceases to send application
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traffic to the pool member and subsequent messages are forwarded to the next available pool member per
the configured load balancing algorithm.
In this document examples are shown with virtual servers and pool members that service single ports, S3 with
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) at port 9021, for example. It is possible for a virtual server to listen traffic on all
service ports. This would allow for all application traffic to point to one virtual server that services all the
related ports. F5 BIG-IP systems have a configuration element called iRule. Using iRules allows
administrators to detail rules, for example, to only process traffic on specific ports and to drop all other traffic.
Using an iRule could allow a virtual server to listen on all ports but only process traffic for ports 111, 2049,
and 10000, the NFS-related ports ECS uses. Readers are encouraged to research iRules to determine if they
are worthwhile for use in their BIG-IP configuration.
Note: Local applications may use the S3-specific application ports, 9020 and 9021. For workflows over the
Internet it is recommended to use ports 80 and 443 on the front end and ports 9020 and 9021 on the
backend. This is because the Internet can handle these ports without problem. Using 9020 or 9021 may
pose issues when used across the Internet.
5.1.1 Example: S3 to Single VDC with Active/Standby LTM Pair
Figure 6 - LTM in active/standby redundancy mode
Figure 6 above shows the basic architecture for this example of an S3 application access to ECS via an
Active/Standby HA pair of LTM at a single site. A client application is shown on the far left. In our case it
resides in the same subnet as the LTM but it could be on any local or global network. Each of our LTM
devices has four network interfaces. The first, not shown above, is used for management access. Interfaces
1.1 are assigned to a VLAN named vlaninternal. In general load balancing terms this is often also called the
back-end or server-side network. Interfaces 1.2 are assigned to VLAN vlanexter nal. Generally this is referred
to as the front-end or client-side network. Interfaces 1.3 are assigned to VLAN vlanha. The HA VLAN is used
for high availability functionality along with synchronization of the device’s configuration and client connection
mirroring. A BIG-IP device group, device-group-a, in our case, logically contains both devices. The device
group’s failover type, sync-failover, is configured with the redundancy mode set to Active/Standby. In
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Devices
System ›› Platform ›› Configuration
f5-ltm-s1-1.ecstme.org: 172.16.3.2
f5-ltm-s1-2.ecstme.org: 172.16.3.3
f5-ltm-s2-1.ecstme.org: 172.16.3.5
NTP
System ›› Configuration : Device : NTP
Time servers
10.254.140.21
DNS
System ›› Configuration : Device : DNS
DNS lookup servers list
10.246.150.22
DNS search domain list
localhost, ecstme.org
Active/Standby redundancy mode, one device actively processes all application traffic at any given time. The
other device is idle and in standby mode waiting to take over processing application traffic if necessary. On
the far right is our VDC at Site 1. All of the ECS nodes are each put in to two BIG-IP pools as referenced in
Figure 6 above using an asterisk. One pool is configured with port 9020 and the other pool for 9021.
In between the client and LTM, a BIG-IP traffic group, traffic-group-1, in our example, is shown. It contains
two virtual servers, one for each type of S3 traffic we provide access for in this example. Applications will
point to the FQDN and appropriate port to reach the VDC.
In between the LTM and VDC two pools are shown, one for each service port we required. Each of these
pools contain all VDC nodes. Not shown is the health monitoring. Monitoring will be discussed further down
as the example continues.
Here is a general overview of the steps in this example:
1. Configure the first LTM.
2. Configure the second LTM and pair the devices for HA.
Step 1: Configure the first LTM.
GUI screenshots are used to demonstrate LTM configuration. Not shown are the initial F5 BIG-IP Virtual
Edition basic setup of licensing and core infrastructure components such as NTP and DNS. Table 11 below
shows these details used for each LTM device.
Table 11 - LTM base device details
Hostname: Management IP
Figure 7 below shows three VLANs and associated network interfaces used. At this point in our example, and
during single device configuration, the third interface and associated VLAN is configured but not used until
later in the HA example. VLAN configuration is simple and consists of naming the VLAN and assigning a
physical network interface, either tagged or untagged, as the resource. We use an untagged interface as
each interface in our design only services one VLAN. None of the devices aside from the F5 BIG-IP DNS and
LTM in our test environment use VLAN tagging. If an interface belongs to multiple VLANs it should be
tagged. For more information on tagged versus untagged interfaces, and when to use each, refer to F5
documentation. In addition, refer to Dell EMC ECS Networking and Best Practices whitepaper here:
https://www.emc.com/collateral/white-paper/h15718-ecs-networking-bp-wp.pdf
.
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Figure 7 - LTM VLANs with interfaces
Figure 8 below shows the non-management network interfaces on this LTM. As mentioned above, during
single device deployment only two interfaces are required to carry application traffic in a typical two-arm
architecture as described earlier in the F5 Networking Constructs section. The third, in our example, is
configured in advance in preparation for HA.
Figure 8 - LTM non-management network interfaces with MAC addresses
Figure 9 below shows the self IP addresses required for this example. Each of the interfaces used for
application traffic are assigned two self IP addresses. The local addresses are assigned to the interface and
are assigned to the built-in traffic group named traffic-group-local-only. In preparation for HA a floating self IP
address is also created for each interface carrying application traffic. In HA they will move between devices
as needed in service to the active unit. The floating self IP addresses are associated with traffic group named
traffic-group-1. Also shown in the graphic is the self IP address for HA. At this point, in a single device
deployment configuration, only two self IP addresses are required for a two-arm architecture, one for each
VLAN and interface that will handle application traffic. Later when we synchronize configuration between the
LTM pair, the static self IP addresses will not be part of the settings shared between the two devices. That is,
these self IP addresses are local only to the device they’re created on.
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