Course Outline
Day 1 — BIG-IP Architecture & Platform Management
• Networking primers — the OSI model (Layers 2–7), load balancers at Layers 4 and 7; mapping IP addressing and subnetting to BIG-IP self IPs and VLANs.
• Theory 1 — TMM traffic-processing architecture; traffic flow from client to virtual server to pool member; device modes, administrative partitions, and role-based access control (essential for segregation-of-duties in banking); licensing and module provisioning for LTM and AVR.
• Theory 2 — TMUI navigation and efficient GUI workflows; tmsh essentials; configuration backup and restore using UCS archives; an overview of hardware versus virtual editions and their suitability for bank data centres.
• Lab (3 hours) — “Get Traffic Flowing” — initial setup involving VLANs, self IPs, and routes; creation of nodes, pools, and health monitors; building the first virtual server; verifying traffic to backend application servers; and taking a UCS backup.
Day 2 — Core Load Balancing & SSL/TLS
• Networking primers — TCP/UDP handshake and port concepts; HTTP methods, headers, status codes, and keep-alive mechanisms.
• Theory 1 — Types of virtual servers; design of pools, nodes, and monitors; load-balancing algorithms; TCP/HTTP profiles and connection reuse; application to internet-banking and API traffic patterns.
• Theory 2 — SSL/TLS offload and certificate management (importing keys and certs, certificate chains, cipher policy aligned with banking security baselines); persistence methods (cookie, source-address) and their appropriate use cases; introduction to iRules with simple read-only examples such as redirects and header insertion.
• Lab (3 hours) — Construct an HTTPS virtual server with SSL offload for a simulated banking portal, configure cookie persistence, validate the certificate chain in the browser, apply a simple redirect iRule, and observe monitor-driven pool member failover.
Day 3 — High Availability & Operations
• Networking primers — Essentials of VLANs, routing, and ARP; DNS resolution flow and record types; recap of the TLS handshake.
• Theory 1 — Device Service Clustering: device trust, sync-failover groups, configuration sync, traffic groups, and floating IPs; failover behaviour and client experience; high availability design considerations for banking, including dual-datacentre patterns and maintenance without downtime.
• Theory 2 — Operations in regulated environments: local and remote logging (syslog, SNMP), AVR traffic analytics, audit logging of administrative changes, upgrade and maintenance procedures, backup strategy, and disaster-recovery basics; a brief overview of automation via iControl REST and WAF (ASM/Advanced WAF) as follow-on topics.
• Lab (3 hours) — Build an active/standby high availability pair using the two per-trainee BIG-IP VEs, establish device trust and configuration sync, execute a forced failover during live traffic, configure remote syslog, review audit logs, perform a final backup, and conclude 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 (to support the Day 3 high availability exercise) and shared backend web servers simulating application tiers. Access is entirely browser-based via a secure Guacamole gateway—trainees require only a web browser, with no need for a VPN client or local software installation, which simplifies participation from secured banking workstations. The environment is pre-configured and verified before Day 1; every trainee will conclude Day 1 with working traffic through their own BIG-IP instance.
Requirements
No prior experience with F5 is necessary.
Basic knowledge of TCP/IP is advantageous but not mandatory. Each day begins with brief networking primers covering the OSI model, TCP/HTTP, and DNS/TLS, tailored to the day's F5 content to bring mixed-experience teams to a common starting point.
Audience: Network engineers, security engineers, and application support and operations staff working in banking and financial institutions.
Testimonials (1)
communication, knowledge from experience, solve problems,
