Course Outline
BIG-IP Architecture & Platform Management
- Networking fundamentals—covering the OSI model (L2–L7) and the role of load balancers at L4/L7; mapping IP addressing and subnetting to BIG-IP self IPs and VLANs.
- TMM traffic-processing architecture; understanding traffic flow from client to virtual server to pool member; device modes, administrative partitions, and role-based access control (addressing banking segregation-of-duties requirements); licensing and module provisioning (LTM, AVR).
- TMUI navigation and efficient GUI workflows; tmsh essentials; configuration backup and restore using UCS archives; comparison of hardware versus virtual editions and their suitability for bank data centres.
- Lab “Get Traffic Flowing”—initial setup (VLANs, self IPs, routes), creation of nodes, pools, and health monitors, building the first virtual server, verifying traffic to backend application servers, and performing a UCS backup.
Core Load Balancing & SSL/TLS
- Networking fundamentals—TCP/UDP handshakes and port concepts; HTTP methods, headers, status codes, and keep-alive connections.
- Virtual server types; design of pools, nodes, and monitors; load-balancing algorithms; TCP/HTTP profiles and connection reuse; application to internet-banking and API traffic patterns.
- SSL/TLS offloading and certificate management (importing keys/certs, chains, and cipher policies aligned with banking security baselines); persistence methods (cookie, source-address) and their appropriate use cases; introduction to iRules with simple read-only examples (redirects, header insertion).
- Lab—Build an HTTPS virtual server with SSL offloading for a simulated banking portal, configure cookie persistence, validate the certificate chain in a browser, apply a simple redirect iRule, and observe monitor-driven pool member failover.
High Availability & Operations
- Networking fundamentals—VLANs, routing, and ARP essentials; DNS resolution flow and record types; TLS handshake review.
- Device Service Clustering: establishing device trust, sync-failover groups, config sync, traffic groups, and floating IPs; understanding failover behavior and client experience; high-availability design considerations for banking (dual-datacentre patterns, maintenance without downtime).
- Operations for regulated environments: local and remote logging (syslog, SNMP), AVR traffic analytics, audit logging of administrative changes, upgrade and maintenance procedures, backup strategies, and disaster-recovery basics; a brief overview of automation (iControl REST) and WAF (ASM/Advanced WAF) as future topics.
- Lab—Build an active/standby high-availability pair using the two per-trainee BIG-IP VEs, establish device trust and config sync, execute a forced failover during live traffic, configure remote syslog, review audit logs, and perform a final backup; concludes with a course recap and Q&A.
Lab Environment
Each trainee is provided with a dedicated, isolated lab environment consisting of two BIG-IP Virtual Edition instances (enabling the Day 3 high-availability exercise) and shared backend web servers simulating application tiers. Access is entirely browser-based through a secure Guacamole gateway—requiring only a web browser and no VPN client or local software installation, which simplifies participation from secured banking workstations. The environment is pre-built and validated prior to Day 1; by the end of Day 1, every trainee will have working traffic routing through their own BIG-IP instance.
Requirements
Previous experience with F5 is not a prerequisite.
Basic TCP/IP knowledge is advantageous but not required. Each day begins with concise networking primers (covering the OSI model, TCP/HTTP, DNS, and TLS) tailored to the day's specific F5 content, ensuring that teams with varied experience levels start from a common baseline.
Target Audience: Network engineers, security engineers, and application support/operations staff working in banking or financial institutions.
Testimonials (1)
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