Modern enterprises demand solutions that combine performance, resiliency, and ease of management. F5 and computer networking company Arista are partnering to create a set of solutions over the next year, starting with simplifying application deployment in multiple locations. This first solution increases resilience through the use of a primary and overflow site:
- Primary site: A private data center where the application is hosted locally.
- Overflow site: A public cloud deployment that kicks in when local resources become congested.
At the heart of this architecture is F5 Distributed Cloud Customer Edge (CE), which serves as the control plane, and the Arista switch that manages Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) peering and equal-cost multi-path (ECMP) routing. A Distributed Cloud CE is a deployable piece of software that extends the F5 Global Network into local environments and lets you take advantage of application security and delivery services from F5 wherever your applications are deployed, without requiring you to change your deployment models or existing networks. Combined with industry-leading switching technology from Arista, you now have a resilient, scalable, and highly available solution for modern application delivery.
The Logical Cloud
F5 Distributed Cloud Services acts as the control plane and allows management of all your sites as a “Logical Cloud.” This helps with failover resiliency and simplifies application migration between locations, connecting new sites, and integrating acquisitions.
F5 and Arista reduce latency while increasing scale and resilience.
The Logical Cloud acts as a portable platform that spans multiple sites and cloud providers, as well as a private backbone that connects all sites. In this Logical Cloud, all application delivery and security services from F5 can be managed through the Distributed Cloud Console for a streamlined management and control experience.
The Logical Cloud provides:
- Multiple failover layers: With both local and public cloud deployments, your application is protected against hardware failures, congestion, or unexpected spikes in traffic.
- Optimized performance: Local traffic is served directly from the private data center, ensuring minimal latency for local users, while the public cloud site acts as a scalable overflow solution to maintain application availability even during high demand.
- Centralized management: The Distributed Cloud Console provides a single pane of glass for managing both local and cloud resources, simplifying operations and maintenance.
How public cloud overflow works
This combined solution enables dynamic traffic steering between the local data center and the public cloud site. The load balancer manages congestion and overflow through continuous monitoring and intelligent policies.
The system employs both active and passive health monitoring to ensure optimal performance. Active health checks involve the load balancer continuously sending health probes (HTTP/TCP requests) to the local application server, monitoring key metrics such as response time, error rate, and overall responsiveness. Simultaneously, passive health checks monitor real-time traffic patterns and application performance metrics, with any degradation in service quality triggering a more in-depth analysis.
Within the Distributed Cloud Console, you can configure specific performance thresholds that determine when traffic should be redirected. When these thresholds are exceeded, indicating that the application is under stress, the load balancer marks the local site as degraded. The system uses priority settings to ensure the local data center handles the bulk of traffic under normal conditions, while the public cloud site, with its lower priority, only receives traffic when local performance metrics fall below acceptable levels. This process is entirely dynamic and happens in real time without manual intervention.
The BGP peering and ECMP routing handled by the Arista switch ensure that local traffic flows efficiently. Meanwhile, the load balancer's policies ensure that the overflow mechanism is triggered only when necessary, preserving low latency for local users.
Increase resilience with a Logical Cloud
Integrating Distributed Cloud CEs with Arista switches presents a powerful solution for enterprises that require both low latency and high resiliency. The Logical Cloud is enabled by intelligently steering traffic based on real-time performance metrics to an overflow public cloud site, which ensures that your application remains available and responsive under all conditions. Whether you’re a network engineer, IT architect, or simply interested in modern infrastructure solutions, this deployment model offers valuable insights into building scalable, high-performance applications.
Check out our DevCentral post for more details on this solution. Also, learn more about F5’s partnership with Arista.
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