To Load Balance or Not to Load Balance? ISE and F5 Big IP

[phillip.vansickle]

Currently my team is debating whether to put our two ISE appliances (PSN nodes) behind our F5 load balancing deployment. 

Our network is relatively small in size (5K users) with a small wireless deployment (4 Cisco controllers with 300 Access points). Network growth should remain relatively minimal over the coming years. 

We will be rolling out wired Dot1X, followed by posture assessment and remediation. (BYOD is not an option). 

On one hand, the Big IP features could make it easier for us to perform load balancing, maintenance and troubleshooting. 

On the other hand, the Big IP adds another element of complexity into an already complex deployment. We already have the capability to load balance from the switches themselves. Load balancing for wireless should not  be an issue as our deployment is very small and I expect it to remain so. Given the size of my environment, there seems to be relatively little to gain for the additional effort and potential pitfalls. 

Would anyone care to share their honest opinion on this issue?

Thanks, 

Phill

[nspasov · Accepted solution]

Load balancers are elegant and do their job nicely when it comes to distributing the load between servers. You already have one so I would suggest using it if you have the technical expertise to configure it.

With that being said, if your team is not 100% comfortable with F5 then you should definitely skip it. Instead, you can configure your WLCs to use Node #1 as primary and Node #2 as secondary Radius server and then your Switches to use Node #2 as primary and Node#1 as secondary. 

I hope this helps!

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