MOVE TOWARDS SIMPLER AUTOMATION WITH ABSTRACTION USING ANSIBLE ROLES - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

MOVE TOWARDS SIMPLER AUTOMATION WITH ABSTRACTION USING ANSIBLE ROLES AND F5 DECLARATIVE APIS.

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Forrest Crenshaw, 
 Product Management Engineer, 
 F5 Networks f.crenshaw@f5.com Payal Singh, Principal Solution Engineer, 
 F5 Networks payal.singh@f5.com

AGENDA

• F5 & Automation Introduction
• F5 Ansible Roles
• Demo: Modules & Roles
• Ansible and the F5 Automation Toolchain
• Demo: Declarative API through Ansible
• Resources

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F5 BIG-IP

RECAP

Previous Webinars

• Automate BIG-IP in customer environments using Ansible
• Basic F5 playbook
• Ansible F5 modules

• Fast application deployment and customer use case with Ansible and F5 BIG-

IP

• Onboarding & App Deployments
• WWT: Building A F5 solution with Ansible Tower
• Using Tower to configure the BIG-IP
• Tackling BIG-IP blue-green deployments in private cloud using F5 & VMWARE

Ansible modules

F5 INTRODUCTION

ADC

Internet

Devices

LTM APM ASM BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager BIG-IP Access Policy Manager BIG-IP Application Security Manager

BIG-IP Cloud Virtual Physical

SECURITY

Platforms

BIG-IP

NEW IN ANSIBLE 2.7

• Modules
• 31 new modules
• 113 total F5 modules
• Roles
• BIG-IP Onboarding
• GSLB Configuration
• Device Backup
• …
• F5-SDK / BIGSUDS dependencies mostly

removed (2.8 fully removed)

bigsuds f5-sdk

NEW MODULES

• Software image Install
• BIG-IP device facts
• Firewall
• Rule, list, policy, Dos
• System Auth
• Profiles
• http, oneconnect, source

persistence

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F5 ANSIBLE ROLES

F5 and Ansible Solution Playbook

Local Connection

Control Node Inventory

REST

Triple “for” loop For each PLAY For each HOST For each TASK

Datacenter / Cloud

MODULE VS ROLE

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Playbook comparison

gtm_pool_member gtm_virtual_server gtm_pool gtm_wide_ip Play: Create GSLB Record Hosts: BIG-IP DNS Tasks: import_role: bigip_gslb Play: Create GSLB Record Hosts: BIG-IP DNS Tasks:

For Free:

• Looping Pools
• Looping Pool members
• Verification DNS is installed
• Default variables
• Dependency check
• Fork to make it yours

Module

easy

Role

easier

• Simplified playbooks

– Make ”code” readable

• Reusable common actions

– Think outside the box – Use someone else's box

• Frequent updates
• Community driven

– Github – Contribute / open issues

ANSIBLE GALAXY

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DEMO 1
 INSTALLING AND USING THE F5 GSLB ROLE

DEMO 1 FLOW

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PB

Control Node

Inv

1

• Pull playbooks and

inventory from git

• Review / Deploy GSLB

configuration via Modules

• Review / Deploy GSLB

configuration via Roles

Control Node

2

BIG-IP Apps

Modules

Control Node

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BIG-IP Apps

Roles

• Download a Role from

Ansible Galaxy

Control Node

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DEMO 1 FOLDER STRUCTURE

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• Application definitions
• Variables for each inventory

item

• Where roles are stored
• Inventory file
• Ansible environment settings
• The playbooks!

DEMO GSLB OBJECT STRUCTURE

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User

DNS Request: testapp.gslb.local.com DNS Response: 10.192.75.64

GSLB - WIDE-IP GSLB - Pool testapp.gslb.local.com testapp.gslb.local.com- pool GSLB – Virtual-Server GSLB – Server

10.192.75.64:8 10.192.75.6 4

DNS Resource F5 BIG-IP

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ANSIBLE AND THE F5 AUTOMATION TOOLCHAIN

IMPERATIVE & DECLARATIVE

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Imperative

Tell the system HOW to do something - every step of the way

Declarative

Tell the system WHAT you want, and let it figure out HOW to do it

&

THROUGH ABSTRACTION YOU CAN…

• Reduce automation complexity

– through reduction of domain specific knowledge

• Focus on functionality and process

– rather than operational maintenance

• Promote service feature adoption

– with declarative APIs

ABSTRACTION

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Data Servers ADC Firewall Apps

• Distribution of data increases the complexity of
• perations

– Where should I look to find the “correct” config?

• Advantages to Source-of-Truth (SoT) consolidation:

– Easier rollback of changes – Faster Root Cause Analysis (RCA) – Single entry point for change control

• Ansible Tower itself can use a GIT repo as SoT for

playbook templates SOURCE-OF-TRUTH

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CMDB

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Bootstrap Onboard Deploy App Services Monitoring/Telemetry Change

Automation Lifecycle L1-L3

Declarative Onboarding

L4-L7

App Services 3 Telemetry Streaming

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Example Declarative Workflow

• Easier integration into playbooks

– Configure services with a single API call – Success of a service is based on a single task rather than many

• Error checking is done at a “service”

level rather than per task

– “Did it work, or not?”

• Leverage the URI module and JINJA2

templates for crafting payloads

– Still utilizing Ansible’s core functionality

URI: Declarative Endpoint Play: Create GSLB Record Hosts: BIG-IP DNS Tasks:

Benefits:

• Maintain Idempotency
• Atomicity
• Ansible “Block” compatible
• Single API request
• Further abstraction

Declarative

easiest

Loop: Verify 200 Response

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DEMO 2
 ANSIBLE AND THE F5 AUTOMATION TOOLCHAIN

DECLARATIVE DEMO FLOW DIAGRAM

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PB

Control Node

Inv

1

• Pull playbooks and

inventory from git

• Review / Deploy GSLB

configuration via Declarative APIs

Control Node

2

Apps

Declarative

AS3

• Review / Deploy GSLB

configuration & Onboarding via Declarative APIs

Control Node

3

Apps

Declarative

AS3 DO

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WHERE DO I BEGIN

• Commit to the shift in

mindset

– If a task seems like it should be easier, it probably can be!

• Commit to learning new

things

– Super-NetOps – Ansible Linklight

• Start with something simple

– Focus on the workflow, not the action

• Solidify your workflow,

expand your scope Ansible Linklight Super-NetOps from F5

REFERENCES

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• Get started on your automation journey:

– www.f5.com/supernetops

• Learn more about solution: (webinars, modules, blogs)

– www.ansible.com/f5

• Current F5 modules in Ansible core:

– http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/list_of_network_modules.html#f5

• Request feature-enhancements:

– https://clouddocs.f5.com/products/extensions/f5-appsvcs-extension/latest/

• Request feature-enhancements:

– https://github.com/F5Networks/f5-ansible/issues

• Download Current Ansible (2.7):

– http://releases.ansible.com/ansible/

• Webinar Demo Repo

– https://github.com/f5devcentral/f5-ansible-sandbox


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THANK YOU