F5 Engineer – BIG-IP rSeries Migration

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United Kingdom.

📋 Description

• This is a brief, impactful 21-day contract for a seasoned F5 engineer prepared to take charge of a complete platform migration from legacy i5800 appliances to the rSeries r5600 platform. The engagement is slated to begin at the end of August and is anticipated to fall outside IR35.

• Our client is in the process of migrating four F5 BIG-IP appliances across two data centers, shifting vCMP guest configurations to F5OS tenants. The environment operates on BIG-IP v17.1+ across HA pairs equipped with LTM, DNS, APM, and ASM. This migration is designed to be a like-for-like transition with a well-defined scope, structured cutover timelines, and a clear architecture. The necessary equipment has been acquired, and the project is set for execution.

• __**What You'll Own**__

• Complete delivery across seven phases:

• **Planning & Preparation:** Assess the current F5 configuration (including QKView analysis), pinpoint migration risks, and create the migration plan, runbook with rollback procedures, and testing plan for stakeholder approval.

• **Platform Setup:** Prepare UCS files, establish management access on the r5600 devices, activate F5 cloud licensing, upgrade F5OS, create BIG-IP tenants, and provision all modules. Import and modify the base configuration offline to ensure no impact on production. Set up HA failover, SYSLOG/SNMP monitoring, and remote authentication (LDAP/AD/TACACS/RADIUS).

• **Component Testing:** Conduct cold testing, cold commissioning, and hot failover testing on each HA pair. Generate test evidence for customer witness approval.

• **Configuration Migration:** Perform a like-for-like migration of LTM, ASM, and APM configurations. Integrate new DNS BIG-IPs into the existing sync-group. Confirm connectivity, pool member availability, application monitoring, and licensing.

• **Cutover:** Manage two after-hours change windows (4 hours each, one per data center), including failover, verification, and post-cutover testing.

• **Post-Cutover Support:** Provide up to 4 hours of next-business-day support following each cutover.

• **Knowledge Transfer:** Conduct a 4-hour session covering operations, administration, backup/restore, and troubleshooting. Update the As-Built documentation to accurately reflect the migrated deployment.

⛳️ Requirements

• **Essential**

• - Demonstrated experience in F5 BIG-IP migration, preferably from iSeries to rSeries or a comparable hardware refresh.

• - In-depth working knowledge of F5OS: tenant creation, licensing, platform management.

• - Practical experience with LTM, DNS (GTM), APM, and ASM.

• - Experience in migrating vCMP guest configurations to F5OS tenants.

• - Strong understanding of HA failover configuration and testing.

• - Capability to create professional migration runbooks, rollback plans, and testing documentation.

• - Comfortable managing out-of-hours cutover windows independently.

• - Comprehensive knowledge of TCP/IP, HTTP/S, DNS, and routing.

• **Desirable**

• - F5 certifications (F5-CA, F5-CTS, or F5 Certified Administrator).

• - Familiarity with F5 cloud-based licensing.

• - Knowledge of QKView analysis and iHealth diagnostics.

• - Skills in scripting and automation: iRules, iControl, tmsh, Ansible, or similar.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive compensation for the contract duration.

• Opportunity to work with cutting-edge technology in a dynamic environment.

• Chance to enhance skills and gain valuable experience in F5 migrations.