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cantalise2485_1
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Apr 01, 2014

Upgrading AWS LTM VIrtual Edition from 11.4 to 11.5

Is the latest BIG-IP LTM release 11.5 also available for AWS LTM virtual edition? If so, what is the procedure to perform software upgrade? I am currently using 11.4 and would like to upgrade to 11.5. Appreciate any input/help on this.

 

2 Replies

  • You can upgrade in place using an ISO from downloads.f5.com or deploy a new 11.5.0 AMI and move your license over (requiring a call or chat to support).

     

    If you go the ISO route you'll also want to download the latest Hotfix which is 11.5.0-HF2 and install it at the same time. You would copy the image and hotfix iso into /shared/images then the upgrade command is something like "tmsh install sys software hotfix Hotfix-BIGIP-11.5.0.2.0.231-HF2.iso volume HD1.2 reboot".

     

  • We had a number of BigIPs running in AWS on 11.4.0 level, that were affected by the kernel panic issue (that is, they could not be rebooted due to an AWS Hypervisor change). We spent quite some time on the ISO route to upgrade them. It's quite time-consuming, though, and we happened across a bug with SSL profiles that we spent some time with F5 support to resolve. It was never fully resolved at the time, in the end we just did not have time to continue the troubleshooting.

     

    Instead I recommend to just deploy a new F5 BigIP virtual instance from an updated AMI provided by F5, and move the license over with F5 support (as also indicated by Daniel above). Move the configuration over with a UCS file, and follow the instructions in SOL9420 in case you have certificates and private keys installed. In our experience, that's a much quicker way to upgrade, with less trouble.

     

    However, we upgraded to 11.4.1 using this procedure, to avoid the kernel panic issue. The main reason why we did not go directly for 11.5.0 was that F5 has not released an AMI for 11.5.0 using the BYOL license model in AWS yet. Only an 11.4.1 AMI is available for the BYOL license model. So if anybody from F5 reads this, when can we expect an AMI published on AWS for BigIP LTM 11.5.0, using the BYOL license model?