VIPRION

Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing (vCMP)

• a feature of the BIG-IP® system that allows you to provision and manage multiple, hosted instances of the BIG-IP software on a single hardware platform. A vCMP hypervisor allocates a dedicated amount of CPU, memory, and storage to each BIG-IP instance.

• vCMP system includes components:

  • vCMP host: the system-wide hypervisor that makes it possible for you to create and view BIG-IP instances, known as guests. Through the vCMP host, you can also perform tasks such as creating trunks and VLANs, and managing guest properties. For each guest, the vCMP host allocates system resources, such as CPU and memory, according to the particular resource needs of the guest.

  • vCMP guests: an instance of the BIG-IP software that you create on the vCMP system for the purpose of provisioning one or more BIG-IP® modules to process application traffic. A guest consists of a TMOS® instance, plus one or more BIG-IP modules. Each guest has its own share of hardware resources that the vCMP host allocates to the guest, as well as its own management IP addresses, self IP addresses, virtual servers, and so on. In this way, each guest effectively functions as its own multi-blade VIPRION® cluster, configured to receive and process application traffic with no knowledge of other guests on the system. Furthermore, each guest can use TMOS® features such as route domains and administrative partitions to create its own multi-tenant configuration. Each guest requires its own guest administrator to provision, configure, and manage BIG-IP modules within the guest. The maximum number of guests that a fully-populated chassis can support varies by chassis and blade platform

  • Virtual machine: an instance of a guest that resides on a slot and functions as a member of the guest's virtual cluster

  • Virtual disk: the portion of disk space on a slot that the system allocates to a guest VM. A virtual disk image is typically a 100 gigabyte sparse file. For example, if a guest spans three slots, the system creates three virtual disks for that guest, one for each blade on which the guest is provisioned. Each virtual disk is implemented as an image file with an .img extension, such as guest_A.img.

  • Core: a portion of a blade's CPU and memory that the vCMP host allocates to a guest. The amount of CPU and memory that a core provides varies by blade platform.

  • Slot: blade

Reference

• What is vCMP: https://techdocs.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/vcmp-administration-viprion-13-0-0/1.html

• Overview of vCMP configuration considerations: https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K15930

• vCMP for VIPRION Systems: Administration: https://techdocs.f5.com/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/manuals/product/vcmp-administration-viprion-11-5-0.html

• K03740927: Understanding interface assignment for vCMP guests: https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K03740927

• K05321814: Overview of administrative tasks performed on vCMP systems: https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K05321814