Up to this point we have spent a lot of time building our toolchain to create
a Declarative Service Catalog. We are now at the point where we can perform
a Declarative, Abstracted Service Deployment using the iWorkflow Tenant Service
Catalog, Tenant API and optionally the built-in Tenant GUI.
As we did in the previous lab we will explore the first deployment in depth
so you can implement a full Service Lifecycle: Create, Read, Update and Delete
(CRUD) operations. For the remaining deployments you can just repeat the steps
used with the first example.
iWorkflow Tenants allow Consumers to perform Service Lifecycle operations in an
isolated environment. All actions performed prior to this lab have been in
what’s called the Provider space and, by nature, are masked from Tenants
unless specifically exposed. As a result of the Tenant isolation, each Tenant
maintains its own set of Users and Roles associated with those users, allowing
each Tenant full control of the actions Tenant Users can perform.
During our iWorkflow Onboarding process in Lab 3.1 we created a
Tenant named MyTenant and an associated Tenant User
with a username of tenant. Additionally we gave MyTenant access to
the BIG-IP Connector named BIG-IPA&BConnector:
This gives the tenant user the ability to perform CRUD operations on
Service Deployments.
Note
Service Templates can also be assigned to specific Cloud Connectors,
allowing you to restrict the use of Templates to a specific Tenant and set
of BIG-IP resources.
iWorkflow provides a Tenant UI that can act as a simple self-service portal
for Tenants. In this lab we’ll use the Tenant UI to monitor the results of
various actions we take via the iWorkflow Tenant API.
Perform the following steps to complete this task:
Open a new Chrome window/tab and connect to https://10.1.1.12
Use the MyTenant Tenant User credentials to login:
Username: tenant
Password: tenant
You will see a user interface that looks similar to the Provider UI, however,
the access is limited to Tenant specific objects. You can see a list of
available Service Templates and Clouds with their
associated Connectors:
Task 2 - Authenticate to the iWorkflow Tenant API¶
As described above, the Tenant interfaces to iWorkflow maintain their own
access control mechanisms. As a result, when performing operations via the
Tenant API you must authenticate with a Tenant User (tenant in this case).
Perform the following steps to complete this task:
In Postman expand the Lab3.3-DeployL4-7Services folder in the
collection.
Click the AuthenticateandObtainTokenforTenantUser request and
examine the JSON request Body. Notice that we are sending the
credentials for the Tenant User (tenant). This request will
automatically populate the iwf_tenant_auth_token variable in the Postman
environment so it can be used by subsequent requests.
Click the Send button on the
AuthenticateandObtainTokenforTenantUser request. Check the
Test Results tab to ensure the token was populated.
Click the SetTenantAuthenticationTokenTimeout request and click the
Send button. This request will increase the timeout value for
the token so we can complete the lab without having to re-authenticate.
Perform the following steps to complete this task:
Click the Deployexample-f5-http-lbService request in the folder.
Examine the URI. Notice that the variable iwf_tenant_name is used to
specify the Tenant we are performing the operation on. In this case
iwf_tenant_name is set to MyTenant in the Postman environment:
Examine the JSON Request Body; it contains the following data:
Deployment name
A URI Reference to the Service Template f5-http-lb-v1.0
The input vars and tables for the deployment. These
fields were marked TenantEditable in the Service Template
A URI Reference to the Connector to use for deployment. This specifies
which BIG-IP devices will be used for this deployment
The data in the list above is highlighted below:
Click the Send button to Create the Service Deployment
Switch to the Chrome iWorkflow Tenant UI window. The example-f5-http-lb
Service is now present in the L4-L7 Services pane. Double
click the Service and examine its properties. You can compare the
values in the UI to the JSON Request Body from the step above.
Open a Chrome window/tab to the BIG-IP A GUI at https://10.1.1.10 and
login with admin/admin credentials. Navigate to
iApps ‣ Application Services. Select
example-f5-http-lb from the list of deployed services and examine the
Components of the deployed service:
Examples Create requests are included in the
Lab3.3-DeployL4-7Services folder. For the remaining services
refer to the table below to see which ones apply most to your specific use
cases. You can repeat the steps in Task 2 for the additional services by
modifying the requests as needed.
Service Name
Description
f5-http-lb
HTTP Load Balancing to a Single Pool
f5-https-offload
HTTPS Offload and Load Balancing to a Single Pool
f5-fasthttp-lb
Performance-enhanced HTTP Load Balancing to a Single Pool
f5-fastl4-tcp-lb
Generic L4 TCP Load Balancing to a Single Pool
f5-fastl4-udp-lb
Generic L4 UDP Load Balancing to a Single Pool
f5-http-url-routing-lb
HTTP Load Balancing with URL Based Content Routing to Multiple Pools
f5-https-waf-lb
HTTPS Offload, Web Application Firewall Protection and Load Balancing
to a Single Pool
