F5 and Ansible

Ansible and F5, better together.

F5 and Ansible provide a joint solution that helps you automate today’s multi-modal infrastructures. By cutting deployment times and significantly reducing the amount of resources required to manage modern infrastructures, Ansible and F5 can help enable a more agile and responsive IT.

WHY ANSIBLE FOR F5 AUTOMATION?   

Compelling reasons for using Ansible for F5 automation include:

  • Ansible project is available as open source.
  • Uses YAML syntax, so it’s easy to get started.
  • Its agentless architecture doesn’t  require additional software.
  • Single-pane-of-glass management automates configurations across your app infrastructure.

Try F5 Collections on Ansible Galaxy

F5 and Ansible: Top customer outcomes

AUTOMATE F5 CONFIGURATIONS

CHALLENGE


Modern ephemeral environments require easy, consistent ways to manage configurations.

SOLUTION


F5 modules on Ansible and F5 Collections on Ansible Galaxy.

OUTCOMES

  • Manage F5 application services using Ansible Playbooks and roles.
  • Write Ansible tasks for F5 once and run them over and over.
  • Retrieve and manage F5 inventory ad hoc or in bulk.
  • Version Ansible Playbooks to state check and validate by comparing running configurations to desired configurations.

CONTINUOUS DELIVERY

CHALLENGE


Release application code quicker with improved efficiency, control, and zero down time. 

SOLUTION


F5 BIG-IP VE, F5 DNS, F5 LTM and Ansible integration.

OUTCOMES

  • Supports blue-green deployments.
  • Programmatic validation before making changes makes the process safer.
  • Low-risk deployments and upgrades without scheduling and announcing maintenance windows.
  • Faster time to resolution because NetOps can move traffic out of a data center that’s experiencing issues.

OPERATIONAL AGILITY

CHALLENGE


Need to reduce time to production for all necessary application services, including network services.

SOLUTION


F5 Automation Tool Chain, F5 modules for Ansible

OUTCOMES

  • Develop, test, and release with enterprise-grade F5 application services by including them as part of CI/CD workflow.
  • Admin-defined F5 deployment and configuration templates for the rest of your organization to choose from.
  • Scheduled F5 deployment and configuration using Red Hat Ansible Tower.

CONSISTENT RELIABILITY AND SECURITY ACROSS CLOUDS

CHALLENGE


As your app infrastructure expands across multiple clouds, forgetting, or missing, a device when patching or deploying secure configurations can cause outages and even expose your apps to attackers.

SOLUTION


F5 Automation Tool Chain, Ansible F5 modules, F5 roles on Ansible Galaxy, F5 Cloud Formation Templates (CFT), and F5 Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates

OUTCOMES

  • Manage hybrid F5 environments with ease and consistency.
  • Red Hat Ansible Tower provides single pane-of-glass management, helping to reduce the time and resources required to manage a distributed infrastructure.
  • Create Ansible tasks and workflows to configure F5 devices once, and then apply the same workflows across multiple F5 infrastructures (cloud, virtual, and physical).
  • Deploy pre-configured traffic and security policies consistently across multiple cloud environments.    
Video

F5 BIG-IQ, BIG-IP and Ansible Automation

Learn more about automating application services' creation, deployment, and ongoing management with F5 and Ansible

Watch the video

CUSTOMER STORY

MARKETAXESS INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY WITH F5 AND ANSIBLE AUTOMATION

GET STARTED

Watch a webinar

Simplify F5 automation using Ansible roles.

Automate with F5 and Ansible

Automate the F5 BIG-IP platform with Ansible.

Download Ansible roles

Explore F5 content in Ansible Galaxy.