Deploy F5 BIG-IP in front of Dell ObjectScale S3 storage clusters

This guide shows you how to deploy F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) in front of a Dell ObjectScale S3 cluster, presenting the entire cluster as a single, highly available S3 endpoint. BIG-IP load balances requests across every ObjectScale node, runs health monitoring to route around failed or draining nodes, and gives storage and network teams one performant front door to the cluster. As AI data delivery pushes more read and write traffic onto object storage than its built-in balancing was designed to absorb, that front door becomes the control point for keeping the path between storage and compute fast and resilient.

The procedure is validated on F5 rSeries running a BIG-IP 21.1 tenant in front of a 32-node Dell ObjectScale cluster, every manual step is also provided as well as the Ansible automation, so the build is repeatable across environments.

What this guide covers

• Network configuration: internal and external Self IPs, VLANs, and the route to the ObjectScale node subnet
• Pool definitions spanning all cluster nodes: One configuration with an HTTP health monitor and Least Connections load balancing for customers who wish to leave traffic from BIG-IP to the S3 storage cluster unencrypted, and another configuration for those who wish to encrypt traffic from the BIG-IP to the S3 cluster.
• Virtual server setups that bind the cluster to one address and port, with Source Address Translation (Auto Map) so nodes need no return routes to client subnets.
• One configuration will be unencrypted and another will utilize SSL encryption between the S3 client and the BIG-IP.
• End-to-end validation using the MinIO WARP benchmarking tool to confirm an error-free S3 path through BIG-IP
• Declarative deployment with the included Ansible playbooks, roles, and inventory

What you'll need

• Administrative access to both the BIG-IP and the Dell ObjectScale cluster
• Familiarity with basic L2/L3 networking concepts
• F5OS at the appliance software level required by the BIG-IP tenant image

Download the deployment guide for the complete configuration and step-by-step screenshots you can adapt to your own addressing, naming, and security standards.