See How to Route Apps across Multi-Cloud Containers with F5 and Red Hat at Red Hat Summit

I tried to make the headline longer, I really did.

In the world of tech it always seems to be the case that April showers bring May tech conferences. It doesn’t rhyme, but it is true. May is the month of many pilgrimages to shows across the globe. F5 will be everywhere, but this post is to highlight one of my favorites: Red Hat Summit.

Red Hat Summit

There’s a lot going at this one – including demonstrations of a multi-cloud demo – at Red Hat Summit (May 8-10) so I will TL;DR up front:

• F5 has partnered with Red Hat to provide a multi-cloud demo with OpenShift Containers, Ansible automation, and Aspen Mesh / Istio insight.
• F5 will be demonstrating this solution at Red Hat Summit in booth #321
• Opportunities to hear about this and automation with Ansible Tower:
  • Wednesday, May 9th @ 10:30am
    • Ecosystem theater (expo hall) 
    • Automating F5 BIG-IP with Ansible Tower
  • Thursday, May 10th @ 3pm
    • Moscone South, Room 207
    • Joint session with Red Hat on Open Shift
• We have a party planned for Wednesday. You can get a personal invite at the booth (#321).

Alright, now we can dig into the details of routing apps across multi-cloud containers with F5 BIG-IP DNS, Aspen Mesh, and Red Hat OpenShift.

Multi-Cloud Demos

Using the Sock Shop microservices demo app, we’ll be showcasing how to direct users seamlessly to the right cloud based on the scenario. For example, a user just wants to browse the site. The user can be directed via BIG-IP DNS to an instance of Sock Shop running in Azure or AWS to browse items (socks, I should guess) and select them for purchase.

Purchasing, however, triggers PCI compliance needs and thus the user is redirected to an on-premises, secure private cloud where microservices for shopping cart, payment, and shipping are used to finalize the transaction.

If the user wants to add more items or keep shopping (is there such a thing as too many socks? I think not) they are again directed to AWS or Azure to view more items.

This use of multi-cloud is a true ‘hybrid’ approach based on the most pedantic of definitions that require an application architecture span one or more cloud environs. The secret sauce is the use of F5 programmability – iRules LX for the curious – to make the routing with F5 DNS speedy and seamless. Monitoring of containers in the OpenShift environment is made possible by the BIG-IP Controller for OpenShift.

You can see the demo at the booth, as well as a demonstration of Aspen Mesh (an enterprise grade service mesh based on Istio) showcasing the potential of east-west load balancing and analytics running multiple clouds at the same time. For east-west traffic, Aspen Mesh provides visibility, control, and analytics within an OpenShift container environment.

This demonstration also uses Sock Shop as well as Istio’s Book Info application as a way to offer operational insight for apps running in multiple clouds as well as across staged environments.

We’ll have experts on all these technologies at the show – so stop by the booth (#321) and ask them anything!

If you’re like me and can’t be there in person, you can follow along on the Twitters: @RedHatSummit @F5Networks @AspenMesh