Deploy F5 BIG-IP for NetApp StorageGRID S3 clusters

This guide shows you how to deploy F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) in front of a NetApp StorageGRID S3 cluster, presenting the entire cluster as a single, highly available S3 endpoint. BIG-IP load balances requests across the StorageGRID nodes and runs custom HTTP/HTTPS health monitoring to route around failed or draining nodes, giving 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 a virtual BIG-IP deployment in front of a 4-node NetApp StorageGRID 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 (Self IPs, VLANs)
• Custom HTTP/HTTPS S3 health monitor
• Pool definitions with Least Connections balancing
• Optimized S3 traffic TCP profiles (CUBIC)
• Virtual server setups with Source Address Translation
• End-to-end validation using Warp benchmarking
• Ansible automation

What you'll need

• Administrative access to BIG-IP and NetApp StorageGRID
• Basic L2/L3 networking knowledge