F5 rSeries Networking

F5 rSeries L1 L2 Networking

1. Port Groups

• Overview
  • The portgroup component is used to control the mode of the physical ports.
  • This controls whether a port is bundled or unbundled and the port speed.
  • The term portgroup is used rather than simply “port” because some front panel ports may accept different types of SFPs.
    • Depending on the portgroup mode value, a different FPGA version is loaded, and the speed of the port is adjusted accordingly.
    • Changing the mode causes a system appliance reboot/reset.
    • Portgroup modification can be done through the F5OS CLI, webUI or API.
• High speed ports (40Gb/100Gb)
  • Currently the high speed ports do not support unbundling.
    • You cannot break out these ports to lower speeds (25Gb or 10Gb) via a breakout cables as this is currently unsupported.
  • Adjacent high speed ports must be configured in the same mode and speed currently.
    • Either both are configured for 40Gb or both configured for 100Gb (no mix and match)
• Low speed ports (25Gb/10Gb)
  • They can be configured independently and can have different speed values
• Interfaces
  • Interfaces will always be numbered starting with 1.0 and ending with the maximum number of ports on the appliance (10.0 on the r5000 series and 20.0 on the r10000 series appliances).
  • The type of optic in combination with the port group setting will dictate the speed of the interface.
  • Interfaces can be run independetly or bundled together in Link Aggregation Groups.
  • VLANs will be assigned to independent interfaces, or at the LAG configuration level if multiple interfaces are bundled together.

Note: Any changes in configuration will require a reboot of the appliance to load a new FPGA bitstream image.

2. Supported Optics

• Overview
  • Only F5 branded optics are officially supported on rSeries appliances.
  • 3rd party optics are not officially supported per F5’s support policies.
  • r2000/r4000 models support speeds of 1Gb, 10Gb, or 25Gb.
  • r5000/r10000 models support speeds of 10Gb, 25Gb, 40Gb, or 100Gb.
    • 1Gb connectivity is not supported.
• Supported rSeries Optics SKU’s
  • For more information refer to K6097.

Note: The r2000 / r4000 will support both F5-UPG-SFPC-R with one caveat. F5-UPG-SFPC-R will only be supported at 1000Mbps on r2000 / r4000, there will be no support for 10Mbps or 100Mbps speeds. 

Note: The r5000 / r10000 platforms do not support 1G SFPs at this time, so F5-UPG-SFPC-R is not supported on those platforms. However, F5-UPG-SFPC+-3M-8 is still supported on r5000 / r10000 for 10G operation.

Note: For 100G BiDi, please contact product management to discuss your requirements, as there are different standards available in the market.

Note: The QSFP+ & QSFP28 optics cannot be configured for unbundled mode - 4 x 25Gb (with a 100Gb QSFP28 optic) or 4 x 10Gb (with a 40Gb QSFP+ optic). The breakout cable SKU’s are not supported on rSeries currently.

3. VLAN & Link Aggregation Groups

• rSeries supports both 802.1Q tagged and untagged VLAN interfaces.
  • In the current F5OS releases, double VLAN tagging (802.1Q-in-Q) is not supported.
  • VLANs can be added to any individual port, or to a Link Aggregation Group.
  • BIG-IP tenants can share the same VLANs if needed.
• rSeries allows for bonding of interfaces into Link Aggregation Groups or LAG’s.
  • LAG’s can span across any port as long as they are configured to support the same speed.
  • Links within a LAG must be the same type and speed.
  • LAG’s may be configured for static or LACP mode.
    • LACP Mode can be Active or Passive.
    • LACP Interval can be Slow or Fast.

4. Pipelines (r5000 & r10000 only)

• Internal Pipelines are connection paths between internal FPGA’s in r10000 and r5000 series.
  • rSeries appliances will have multiple pipelines between FPGA’s.
• They are exposed to the user so that user can plan for the most optimal network connectivity.
  • This is to avoid oversubscription as each pipeline supports a max bandwidth of 100Gb.
  • Front panel ports are statically mapped to different internal pipelines to distribute load.
  • Ideally proper knowledge of pipelines and planning will avoid any possible internal oversubscription scenarios.
• Below shows the total pipelines and ports for the r5000 appliances.

5. Port Profiles (r2000 & r4000 only)

• The hardware architecture in the r2000 and r4000 appliances is different than the r5000 and r10000 appliances.
  • The r2000 and r4000 do not leverage FPGA’s.
  • the Intel chipset handles the connections to the front panel interfaces.
  • The Intel chipset supports three different port profiles that allow a maximum of 100Gb of front panel bandwidth to be enabled at one time.
• The diagram above shows the possibility of 140Gb of total front panel bandwidth.
  • This is the maximum possibility ports arrangement (4 x 10Gb + 4 x 25Gb).
  • This is not a limit calculated based on traffic volumes, it is based on configured maximum front panel bandwidth.
  • This means that some ports may be disabled based on the port profile that is selected.
• The r2000 and r4000 appliances support the configuration of 3 different port profiles.
  • 8 x 10Gb
    • Allow all eight ports to be utilized when operating at a maximum of 10Gb each, as this will not exceed the 100Gb maximum bandwidth.
    • The ports can run in either 10Gb, or 1Gb speeds.
  • 4 x 25Gb
    • Allow the four SFP28/SFP+/SFP ports to be configured, and run either 25Gb, 10Gb, or 1Gb speeds.
    • The four RJ45 ports will be disabled, as enabling them could exceed the 100Gb maximum bandwidth.
  • 2 x 25Gb – 4 x 10Gb
    • Allow for six total ports to be enabled, and two of the SFP/SFP+/SFP28 ports are disabled.
    • Two of the SFP/SFP+/SPF28 ports are enabled and can run 25Gb, 10Gb or 1Gb modes, and the remaining two SFP/SFP+/SPF28 ports are disabled.

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