Scaling F5 Distributed Cloud on AWS with Terraform and Network Load Balancers

A recent guide from F5 outlines a method for deploying F5 Distributed Cloud Customer Edge (CE) nodes on AWS, designed for scalability and automation. The core of this solution involves using Terraform for infrastructure-as-code deployments, integrating F5's Virtual Sites with AWS Network Load Balancers (NLB) to establish a resilient cloud networking infrastructure. This setup is particularly beneficial for organizations looking to manage distributed applications across multiple cloud and on-premises environments. The architecture employs a dual-layer load balancing strategy. The first layer utilizes AWS Network Load Balancers (NLB) to provide native Layer 4 distribution across the F5 CE nodes. The NLB offers essential features like AWS-native health checking, cross-zone load balancing, and AWS Shield Standard DDoS protection, ensuring the CE nodes are not directly exposed to the internet. This foundational layer ensures high availability and efficient traffic distribution at a low level. The second layer is handled by F5 Distributed Cloud's CE nodes, which offer advanced Layer 7 capabilities. These include application-layer security features such as Web Application Firewall (WAF), Bot Defense, API Discovery, API Protection, and Rate Limiting. Furthermore, the CE nodes provide sophisticated L7 traffic management, enabling functionalities like A/B testing, canary deployments, and path-based routing. This combination allows for granular control over application traffic and robust security posture. A key concept in this deployment is the F5 Distributed Cloud Virtual Site. A Virtual Site acts as a logical abstraction that groups multiple CE sites, forming a unified fabric for application delivery. This abstraction simplifies configuration management, as policies can be uniformly pushed to all CE nodes within a Virtual Site, regardless of their physical location or number. This means that as nodes are added or removed, individual configurations do not need to be updated, streamlining operations. The solution supports multi-region and multi-cloud deployments, allowing a single Virtual Site to span CE nodes across various AWS regions, Azure, and even on-premises data centers simultaneously. This capability ensures consistent configuration and policy enforcement across a hybrid and multi-cloud landscape, facilitating workload mobility and providing a flexible and secure IT infrastructure. The guide also details the necessary AWS infrastructure components, including VPCs, subnets, and NAT Gateways, to support this advanced cloud networking setup.