Create Fleet

Objective
Associating Fleet with Site
Fleet and Virtual Site
Prerequisites
Configuration
Create a Fleet
Apply the Fleet label to a Site
Concepts
API References

Objective

This guide provides instructions on how to create a Fleet using F5® Distributed Cloud Console (Console). See Fleet for more information.

Fleet is used to configure infrastructure components (like nodes) in one or more F5® Distributed Cloud Services Customer Edge (CE) sites homogeneously. Fleet configuration includes the following information:

Software image release to be deployed on the Fleet
Virtual networks
List of interface and devices to be configured on every node
Connections between the virtual networks
Security policies applied in the Site

Note: F5 does not recommend that you create a Fleet for clouds sites, such as AWS VPC, AWS TGW, Azure VNET, GCP Credentials, or F5® Distributed Cloud App Stack (App Stack) sites.

Associating Fleet with Site

Fleet has a field called fleet_label. When a Fleet object is created, the system automatically creates a known_label ves.io/fleet=. The known_label is created in the Shared namespace for the tenant. A site is made a "member of Fleet" when this known_label is added to the site. A site can have at most one known_label of type ves.io/fleet and hence belongs to exactly one Fleet at any given time.

When a Site becomes a member of a Fleet, all nodes in the site also become "members of that Fleet". The Fleet configuration is applied on all nodes that are members of the Fleet.

Note: Adding fleet label to the following type of sites is not supported:

App Stack Site

AWS VPC Site

AWS TGW Site

Azure VNET Site

GCP VPC Site

Fleet and Virtual Site

Both Fleet and Virtual Site select a list of sites based on labels. But there is a major difference between Virtual Site and Fleet. Virtual sites are intersecting subsets of available sites. Fleet is a non-intersecting subset of available sites compared to other Fleets. As a result, at most one Fleet configuration is applied on a site. Also, while a Virtual Site selects sites based on their labels (via the Virtual Site configured label selectors), the Fleet must be applied in the sites that you want to be part of that Fleet (it does not select them).

However, to enable other features like monitoring, deploying applications or jobs on sites represented by Fleet, the system will automatically create a Virtual Site in the Shared namespace representing all sites in a Fleet.

Using the instructions provided in this guide, you will be able to create a Fleet, with all its elements, and apply to your site, making it part of this Fleet.

Prerequisites

A Distributed Cloud Services Account is required. If you do not have an account, see Create an Account.
One or more Sites.

Configuration

The following video shows you how to create a Fleet with the required network configuration and application for your gateways:

Create a Fleet

You can create and configure a Fleet label to apply to your sites, to perform software and operating system upgrades as well as other administrative tasks.

Step 1: Start creating Fleet in Console.

Log into Console.
Click Multi-Cloud Network Connect.

Click Manage > Site Management > Fleets.
Click Add fleet.

Step 2: Add your Fleet name and metadata.

In the Metadata section, enter a mandatory Fleet name in the Name field.
Optionally, select a label and enter a short description.

Step 3: Configure your Fleet label, virtual networks, and software versions.

In the Fleet Configuration section, enter a mandatory value for the Fleet label in the Fleet Label Value field.
Configure the following optional fields:
- Select an outside virtual network from the Outside (Site Local) Virtual Network menu. To create a new network, click Create new Virtual Network. In the page that appears, configure the fields. After you finish, click Continue.
- Select an inside virtual network from the Site Local Inside Virtual Network menu. To create a new network, click Create new Virtual Network. In the page that appears, configure the fields. After you finish, click Continue.
- In the Software Version field, enter a software version.
- In the Operating System Version field, enter an operating system version.

Step 4: Select or create network interfaces for the sites in your Fleet.

To add and configure a new bond device:
- From the Select Bond Configuration menu, select if you want to configure a new bond interface with Configure Bond Interfaces. The option for No Bond Devices is set by default.
- Click Add Item.
- From the Bond Device Name menu, click See Common Values. Select a value from the list displayed or type a custom name.
- In the Member Ethernet Devices section, click See Common Values from the List of Member Ethernet Devices menu. Select a value from the options displayed or type a custom name. You can add more member devices using the Add item option.
- From the Select Bond Mode menu, select how the bonding occurs. If you select LACP (802.3ad), enter a packet interval value in the LACP Packet Interval field.
- Click Add Item.
Perform the following to configure non-bond interfaces:
- From the Select Interface Configuration menu, select your interface configuration from the options available. The Default Interface Config option does not require more configuration.
- If you select List of Interfaces, select as many interfaces as needed. To add more, click Add item.
- If you select Legacy Device List, click Add Item and perform the following:
  - Enter the required information for Device Name, Device Owner, Device Instance and Use.
  - Click Add Item.

Note: For devices such as IGW/ISV, a default fleet is created and a default configuration such as DHCP will be applied for network interfaces. To disable or override such configurations, create a fleet with network interface that does not contain any or custom configuration.

Step 5: Configure network connectors.

To select an existing network connector:
- In the Network Connectors sections, click Select Network Connector.
- From the list that appears, find and select the network connector, and then click Select Network Connector.
To create a new connector, click Add new Network Connector.

Complete the configuration using the instructions provided at Network Connectors.

Step 6: Select or create a network firewall for your Fleet.

The Network Firewall object is used to configure network policies, forward and reverse proxies, and Distributed Cloud Services Fast Access Control Lists (ACLs). After this object is configured, it is applied to all sites within a Fleet and any associated virtual networks.

To select an existing network firewall, use the Network Firewall drop-down menu to search for the network firewall.
To create a new network firewall, click Create new Network Firewall.

Complete the configuration using the instructions provided at Network Firewall.

Step 7: Configure Fleet storage.

In the Storage Configuration section, configure storage for your Fleet of sites using the instructions provided at Configure Storage in Fleet.

Step 8: Configure static routes and other advanced settings.

The settings in the Advanced Configuration section enable you to configure more options for your Fleet.

Step 8.1: Configure new static route.

To configure a new static route:
- From the Select Storage Static Routes menu, click List of Storage Static Routes.
- Click Add Item to display the form.

On the static route creation form, configure the options available.
After you finish, click Add Item.

Step 8.2: Configure other options.

To configure more options, click Show Advanced Fields and perform the following:
- To configure the cluster group, follow the instructions provided at Create App Stack Site.
- To configure the GPU, follow the instructions provided at Deploy GPU Workload Using vK8s.
- To configure log streaming, follow the instructions provided at Configure Streaming of Logs.
- To configure USB device policy, follow the instructions provided at Manage USB Devices Using Fleet.

Step 9: Enable Fleet configuration download.

In the Enable Default Fleet Config Download section, optionally enable the default Fleet configuration download option with Enable Default Fleet Config Download.