F5 Viprion User manual

Platform Guide: VIPRION™
MAN-0267-01

Platform Guide: VIPRION™ i
Product Version
This manual applies to the VIPRIONTM hardware platform created by F5 Networks, Inc.
Publication Date
This guide was published on February 18, 2009.
Legal Notices
Copyright
Copyright 2009, F5 Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
F5 Networks, Inc. (F5) believes the information it furnishes to be accurate and reliable. However, F5
assumes no responsibility for the use of this information, nor any infringement of patents or other rights of
third parties which may result from its use. No license is granted by implication or otherwise under any
patent, copyright, or other intellectual property right of F5 except as specifically described by applicable
user licenses. F5 reserves the right to change specifications at any time without notice.
Trademarks
F5, F5 Networks, the F5 logo, BIG-IP, 3-DNS, Acopia, Acopia Networks, Application Accelerator, Ask
F5, Application Security Manager, ASM, ARX, ControlPoint, Data Guard, Enterprise Manager, EM, F5
Management Pack, FirePass, FreedomFabric, Global Traffic Manager, GTM, iControl, Internet Control
Architecture, IP Application Switch, iRules, Link Controller, LC, Local Traffic Manager, LTM, Message
Security Module, MSM, NetCelera, OneConnect, Packet Velocity, SSL Accelerator, SYN Check, Traffic
Management Operating System, TMOS, TrafficShield, Transparent Data Reduction, uRoam, VIPRION,
WANJet, WebAccelerator, and ZoneRunner, are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the
U.S. and other countries, and may not be used without F5's express written consent.
Export Regulation Notice
This product may include cryptographic software. Under the Export Administration Act, the United States
government may consider it a criminal offense to export this product from the United States.
RF Interference Warning
This is a Class A product. In a domestic environment this product may cause radio interference, in which
case the user may be required to take adequate measures.
FCC Compliance
This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class A digital device pursuant
to Part 15 of FCC rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful
interference when the equipment is operated in a commercial environment. This unit generates, uses, and
can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instruction manual,
may cause harmful interference to radio communications. Operation of this equipment in a residential area
is likely to cause harmful interference, in which case the user, at his own expense, will be required to take
whatever measures may be required to correct the interference.
Any modifications to this device, unless expressly approved by the manufacturer, can void the user's
authority to operate this equipment under part 15 of the FCC rules.
Canadian Regulatory Compliance
This Class A digital apparatus complies with Canadian ICES-003.
Standards Compliance
This product conforms to the IEC, European Union, ANSI/UL and Canadian CSA standards applicable to
Information Technology products at the time of manufacture.

ii
VCCI Class A Compliance
This is a Class A product. In a domestic environment, this product may cause radio interference, in which
case the user may be required to take corrective actions. The power cables included with this platform are
designed for use solely with this platform.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Platform Guide: VIPRION™ v
1
Introducing the VIPRION Platform
Working with the VIPRION platform ........................................................................................1-1
Getting started with the VIPRION platform ............................................................................1-2
Components provided with the VIPRION platform .....................................................1-2
Peripheral hardware that you provide ..............................................................................1-2
Familiarizing yourself with the VIPRION platform ..................................................................1-4
Using the chassis ....................................................................................................................1-4
Using blades ............................................................................................................................1-4
About this guide ..............................................................................................................................1-5
Finding additional information .............................................................................................1-6
Stylistic conventions ..............................................................................................................1-6
Finding help and technical support resources ..........................................................................1-9
2
Installing the VIPRION Platform
Installing and connecting the hardware .....................................................................................2-1
General recommendations for installing a chassis in a rack ........................................2-1
3
Operating the LCD Panel
Introducing the LCD panel ...........................................................................................................3-1
Using the LCD panel ......................................................................................................................3-2
Pausing on a screen ...............................................................................................................3-2
Accessing LCD menus ..........................................................................................................3-2
Clearing alerts .........................................................................................................................3-2
Navigating through the LCD menus ...........................................................................................3-3
LCD Config menu ..................................................................................................................3-3
System menu ...........................................................................................................................3-4
Screens menu ..........................................................................................................................3-4
Information menu ..................................................................................................................3-5
Managing clusters with the LCD menus ....................................................................................3-5
Configuring clusters through the LCD menu ..................................................................3-6
Configure cluster members .................................................................................................3-7
4
Using Additional VIPRION Functionality
Understanding LED behavior .......................................................................................................4-1
LED Locations ........................................................................................................................4-1
LED indicator functions ........................................................................................................4-1
LED indicator actions ............................................................................................................4-2
Standard operating states ....................................................................................................4-3
Alert conditions indicated by the Alarm LED .................................................................4-4
Specific status indicated by the LEDs ................................................................................4-5
Working with interfaces ................................................................................................................4-6
Displaying status and settings for interfaces ....................................................................4-6
Specifying media type and duplex mode ...........................................................................4-6

Table of Contents
vi
5
Maintaining the VIPRION Platform
Reviewing maintenance options and operations .....................................................................5-1
Changing blades ...............................................................................................................................5-1
Changing the fan tray .....................................................................................................................5-6
Replacing the fan tray ............................................................................................................5-6
Changing a power supply ..............................................................................................................5-7
Adding a power supply .........................................................................................................5-7
Replacing a power supply .....................................................................................................5-8
Removing and replacing the LCD component .........................................................................5-9
6
Guidelines for DC Power in the VIPRION Platform
Introducing the DC power supply option for the VIPRION platform ...............................6-1
Installing the system in a rack .............................................................................................6-1
Additional equipment for DC power ................................................................................6-2
Grounding the system ..........................................................................................................6-2
Connecting the DC power source to the system .........................................................6-3
VIPRION DC power supply specifications ...............................................................................6-6
Power provisioning for the VIPRION platform ..............................................................6-6
Guidelines for DC-powered equipment ...........................................................................6-7
Additional NEBS information ..............................................................................................6-7
7
Working with Environmental Guidelines for the VIPRION Platform
Environmental requirements ........................................................................................................7-1
General environmental guidelines ......................................................................................7-1
Guidelines for AC-powered equipment ...........................................................................7-2
Guidelines for DC-powered equipment ...........................................................................7-2
8
Reviewing Hardware Specifications
Reviewing hardware specifications .............................................................................................8-1
Understanding power requirements ..........................................................................................8-2
Power provisioning ................................................................................................................8-2
Power cables ...........................................................................................................................8-3
PB100 blade specifications ............................................................................................................8-4
J100 chassis specifications .............................................................................................................8-5
Additional acoustic, airflow, and altitude specifications .........................................................8-6
A
Platform-Specific Hazardous Substance Levels, for China
VIPRION chassis ............................................................................................................................A-1
VIPRION blades .............................................................................................................................A-2
Glossary
Index

1
Introducing the VIPRION Platform
• Working with the VIPRION platform
• Getting started with the VIPRION platform
• Familiarizing yourself with the VIPRION platform
• About this guide
• Finding help and technical support resources

Introducing the VIPRION Platform
Platform Guide: VIPRION™ 1 - 1
Working with the VIPRION platform
The VIPRIONTM platform is one of the most robust systems capable of
managing traffic for any size of enterprise.
The VIPRION platform consists of a unique chassis/blade configuration.
This configuration allows you to add, remove, and change components on
the fly, without interrupting the essential services of the BIG-IP®software
installed on the platform. Everything from the blades to the power supplies,
the fan tray to the LCD panel, is available for you to add, remove, or change
as needed.
The highly extensible nature of the VIPRION platform has been designed to
be easy to implement; however, some familiarity with the components of the
VIPRION platform can ensure that you install and integrate the platform
successfully and effectively.
Note
If you have not already done so, we recommend that you read the Setting
Up the VIPRIONTM Platform guide. This guide provides a detailed
explanation of how to unpack, rack, install components, and power the
platform.

Chapter 1
1 - 2
Getting started with the VIPRION platform
There are several basic tasks you must complete to get the VIPRION
platform installed and set up:
• Review the hardware requirements. For more information about the
hardware requirements, read the following sections, Components
provided with the VIPRION platform, following, and Peripheral
hardware that you provide, following.
• Understand the environmental guidelines. For more information, see
Environmental requirements, on page 7-1.
• Familiarize yourself with the VIPRION hardware. For more information,
see Familiarizing yourself with the VIPRION platform, on page 1-4.
• Connect the VIPRION platform to the network, and optionally connect
the peripheral hardware. For more information on mounting the hardware
and attaching cables, see Installing and connecting the hardware, on
page 2-1.
The VIPRION platform comes with the hardware that you need for
installation. However, you must also provide standard peripheral hardware,
such as a serial terminal, if you want to administer the VIPRION platform
directly.
Components provided with the VIPRION platform
When you unpack the VIPRION platform, you should make sure that the
following components are included:
• Four power cables (C19 to NEMA 6-20P)
• Two mounting brackets
• Four mounting handles
• Eight rack mount screws
• LCD component
• One electrical static discharge (ESD) strap
The power cables included with this unit are for exclusive use with this unit
and should not be used with other electrical appliances.
Peripheral hardware that you provide
For each VIPRION platform in the system, the peripheral hardware you
provide is determined by the configuration you want to create:
◆If you plan to use direct administrative access to the VIPRION platform,
you need standard input/output hardware. This requires a serial terminal
and a null modem cable.

Introducing the VIPRION Platform
Platform Guide: VIPRION™ 1 - 3
◆If you want to use the default VIPRION platform configuration, you
must have an administrative workstation on the same IP network as the
platform.
◆You also need network hubs, switches, or concentrators to connect to the
VIPRION platform network interfaces. The devices you select must be
compatible with the network interface cards installed in the VIPRION
platform.
• Ethernet requires either a 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps hub or switch.
• Gigabit Ethernet requires a compatible Gigabit Ethernet switch.
• 10 Gigabit Ethernet requires a compatible 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch.
◆You can use a USB drive compatible with the system for installing
upgrades and for system recovery. You can perform an upgrade or
system recovery with almost any non-CDRW USB drive. Even though
most USB CD-ROMs should work, we cannot guarantee compatibility
with all makes and models.
If you plan on doing remote administration from your own PC workstation
as most users do, we recommend that you have your workstation already in
place on the same subnet to which the management interface is connected.

Chapter 1
1 - 4
Familiarizing yourself with the VIPRION platform
The VIPRION Platform includes two primary components: the chassis,
which houses the components, and blades, which reside within the chassis
and provide the hardware and software needed to manage network traffic.
Using the chassis
The VIPRION chassis is the housing unit that contains all of the
components necessary for the VIPRION platform to operate effectively.
One of the most powerful features of the VIPRION platform is that you can
add, remove, or change any or all of the essential components of the
platform. These components include blades, power supplies, the fan tray, the
LCD panel, and the System ID card. This configuration allows for an
extremely robust and flexible system that can manage large amounts of
application traffic, and remain operational even if one of its components
goes offline.
Using blades
A blade is the primary component that handles the traffic management
within the VIPRION platform. You can install up to four blades in a single
VIPRION chassis. These blades exist in a single group, called a cluster. In
instances where you do not have a blade for a given slot in the VIPRION
chassis, the chassis includes a blank which helps protect the airflow within
the platform. These blanks also ensure the EMC compliance of the unit and
must be installed on all unused slots.

Introducing the VIPRION Platform
Platform Guide: VIPRION™ 1 - 5
About this guide
This guide describes the features of the VIPRION platform. This guide
contains the following information about these features:
•Installing the hardware
You can learn how to install the hardware in a rack. For more
information, see Chapter 2, Installing the VIPRION Platform.
•Understanding the ports and interfaces
You can understand the intended use of the ports and interfaces on each
platform. For more information, see Working with interfaces, on page
4-6.
•Using the LCD panel
You can learn how to understand and use the LCD panel. For more
information see Chapter 3, Operating the LCD Panel.
•Managing clusters
You can learn how to manage the IP addresses and other management
interface settings associated with clusters. For more information, see
Managing clusters with the LCD menus, on page 3-5.
•Understanding LED behavior
You can learn how to decipher what conditions are signaled by the
LEDs. For more information, see Understanding LED behavior, on page
4-1.
•Changing blades
You can learn how to add, remove, and change blades. For more
information, see Changing blades, on page 5-1.
•Replacing a fan tray
You can learn how to replace a fan tray. For more information see
Changing the fan tray, on page 5-6.
•Changing a power supply
You can learn how to replace a power supply. For more information, see
Changing a power supply, on page 5-7.
•Understanding the environmental guidelines
You can read detailed environmental guidelines for each platform. For
more information, see Chapter 7, Working with Environmental
Guidelines for the VIPRION Platform.
•Learning the hardware specifications
You can see details about the hardware specifications for each platform.
For more information, see Chapter 8, Reviewing Hardware
Specifications.

Chapter 1
1 - 6
Finding additional information
In addition to this guide, there are other sources of documentation you can
use in order to work with the VIPRION platform. The information is
available in the guides and documents described below.
The printed documentation, Setting Up the VIPRIONTM Platform, is
included with the VIPRION system. This guide provides you with the basic
configuration steps required to get the VIPRION system up and running in
the network.
In addition, the following guides are available from the Ask F5SM
Knowledge Base web site (https://support.f5.com):
◆Configuration Guide for the VIPRIONTM System
This guide contains information on how to implement the cluster-specific
features of the BIG-IP software.
◆Configuration Guide for BIG-IP®Local Traffic Management
This guide contains any information you need for configuring the BIG-IP
system to manage local network traffic. With this guide, you can perform
tasks such as creating virtual servers and load balancing pools,
configuring application and persistence profiles, implementing health
monitors, and setting up remote authentication.
◆BIG-IP®Network and System Management Guide
This guide contains any information you need to configure and maintain
the network and system-related components of the BIG-IP system. With
this guide, you can perform tasks such as configuring VLANs, assigning
self IP addresses, creating administrative user accounts, and managing a
redundant system.
◆BIG-IP®Command Line Interface Guide
This guide contains information you need if you choose to configure the
BIG-IP system using the command line interface instead of the
Configuration utility. It includes instructions for handling specific tasks,
but it does not include instructions for configuring every aspect of the
system. It also contains an appendix with detailed information about the
bigpipe commands.
Stylistic conventions
To help you easily identify and understand important information, our
documentation uses the stylistic conventions described following.
Using the solution examples
All examples in this documentation use only private class IP addresses.
When you set up the solutions we describe, you must use valid IP addresses
suitable to your own network in place of our sample addresses.

Introducing the VIPRION Platform
Platform Guide: VIPRION™ 1 - 7
Identifying new terms
To help you identify sections where a term is defined, the term itself is
shown in bold italic text. For example, a virtual server is a specific
combination of a virtual address and virtual port, associated with a content
site that is managed by a BIG-IP system or other type of host server.
Identifying references to objects, names, and commands
We apply bold text to a variety of items to help you easily pick them out of a
block of text. These items include web addresses, IP addresses, utility
names, and portions of commands, such as variables and keywords. For
example, with the bigpipe pool <pool_name> show command, you can
specify a specific pool to show by specifying a pool name for the
<pool_name> variable.
Identifying references to other documents
We use italic text to denote a reference to another document. In references
where we provide the name of a book as well as a specific chapter or section
in the book, we show the book name in bold, italic text, and the
chapter/section name in italic text to help quickly differentiate the two. This
is an example of a reference:
For details about connecting the system to a management workstation or
network, see the chapter on, Connecting a Management Workstation or
Network, in Installation, Licensing, and Upgrades for BIG-IP®Systems.

Chapter 1
1 - 8
Identifying command syntax
We show complete commands in bold Courier text. Note that we do not
include the corresponding screen prompt, unless the command is shown in a
figure that depicts an entire command line screen. For example, the
following command shows the configuration of the specified pool name:
bigpipe pool <pool_name> show
or
b pool <pool_name> show
Table 1.1 explains additional special conventions used in command line
syntax.
Item in text Description
\Indicates that the command continues on the following line, and that users should type the entire
command without typing a line break.
< > Identifies a user-defined parameter. For example, if the command has <your name>, type in your
name, but do not include the angle brackets.
|Separates parts of a command.
[ ] Indicates that syntax inside the brackets is optional.
... Indicates that you can type a series of items.
::= Means is defined as. Indicates that an argument is followed by the description of the elements that
you can use for the argument.
Table 1.1 Command line syntax conventions

Introducing the VIPRION Platform
Platform Guide: VIPRION™ 1 - 9
Finding help and technical support resources
You can find additional technical documentation and product information in
the following locations:
◆Online help
The Configuration utility has online help for each screen. The online help
contains descriptions of each control and setting on the screen. Click the
Help tab in the left navigation pane to view the online help for a screen.
◆Welcome screen in the Configuration utility
The Welcome screen in the Configuration utility contains links to many
useful web sites and resources, including:
• The F5 Networks Technical Support web site
• The F5 Solution Center
• The F5 DevCentral web site
• Plug-ins, SNMP MIBs, and SSH clients
◆F5 Networks Technical Support web site
The F5 Networks Technical Support web site, https://support.f5.com,
provides the latest documentation for F5 products, including:
• Release notes for the product, current and past
• Updates for guides (in PDF form)
• Technical notes
• Answers to frequently asked questions
• The Ask F5SM Knowledge Base
To access this site, you need to register at https://support.f5.com.

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