Automating the F5 devices backup and restore tasks

An F5 load balancer manages traffic distribution from diverse clients to multiple F5 devices or servers in a multitenant environment. It is essential to regularly back up the configuration and settings for F5 network devices, which are stored in their respective user configuration set (UCS) files. If an F5 device fails, the network team can initiate an automatic configuration restoration process by providing the device's IP address and utilizing the backed-up UCS file.

Related topics

Automating-Service-Management-and-Operations-Management-tasks

Scenario: F5 device backup

Scenario

Apex Global relies on an F5 load balancer to efficiently manage network traffic and ensure seamless failover. A hardware failure occurs on an F5 device, making it inoperable. The IT department scrambles to get the device up and running, but they realize the configuration settings have not been backed up recently. The team has to manually recreate the configuration, which takes time. Had an automated backup system been implemented for the UCS file, the IT team would have quickly restored the configuration from the latest backup, minimizing downtime and disruption of access. 

The network team automates the backup and restoration process for F5 devices. If a device experiences a failure, the IT team submits a request after providing specific device details. The F5 device is restored by using the backup of the UCS file. 

Benefits

Automating the F5 device backup and restore tasks provides the following benefits:

  • Minimises downtime
  • Reduces the scope of errors and requires minimal or no manual intervention
  • Streamlines recovery

The F5 device automated backup process performs the following functions:

  • Proactively identifies issues via automated health check report.
  • Creates backup files of each F5 device configuration.
  • Provides user-based pipelines to restore configuration and minimize the occurrence of outages. 

Automation workflow

The process automation team creates an automation workflow, a set of automated tasks that streamline the backup process.

The following graphic shows the automated backup process. A Jenkins pipeline runs every day and performs the backup.

 Automated backup of UCS files of all F5 devices

The automated backup process performs the following actions:

  1. Discovers all F5 devices within the cloud-based SaaS environment.
  2. Performs daily health checks for all F5 devices across every data center.
  3. Generates a priority 1 ticket for the network team on detecting any unhealthy F5 device. 
  4. Creates backups of the UCS files for all F5 devices.
  5. If an issue is observed with the automation process, it creates a high incident and assigns it to the network team.
  6. Downloads the backup files and stores them in Go Git Service (GOGS), a self-hosted Git service.
  7. Deletes backup files that are older than the retention period.
    The retention period is set to 15 days.

To recover the configuration of an F5 device after a failure:

If an F5 device failure occurs, an IT team member submits a request after providing the F5 device details. The configuration is restored by a user-based Jenkins pipeline. 

The following graphic shows the automated recovery process:

Restore F5 device configuration from the UCS file

The automated process performs the following steps:

  1. Creates a work order.
  2. Downloads the UCS file for the F5 device from GOGS.
  3. Uploads the file to the F5 device where the failure occurred.
  4. If the restore operation is successful, updates the status of the work order status is updated, and notifies the user and the network team.
  5. If the restore operation fails, the workflow performs the following steps:
    1. Creates a high-priority incident.
    2. Assigns the incident to the network team.
    3. Updates the work order with the incident details. 

 

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