Forum Discussion
leemedz
Altocumulus
AltocumulusBIG-IQ 8.3 - no BIG IQ Central Management option
Trying to build a BIG IQ v 8.3 on Hyper V but I keep running into an issue where I can licence the box using a trial licence (all appears to be working as expected) create the Master Keys and reset the Password but as soon as I get to the System Personality the option for BIG-IQ Central Management is not available. It only presents me the option of BIG-IQ Data Collection Device. If skip the licence at Step 1 then I also get the option to create a License Manager but that's not really very useful either. 🤨
The guide I am following is the F5 one - BIG IQ Build Guide - and have assigned the VM 32GB RAM and 8 cores after initially trying it with half the above figures which I thought might be the issue but still no joy.
Have deleted the VM and recreated using a new copy of the VHD file - same problem seen so I am at a bit of a loss as to what to try next. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Went back to have a look at this again today and somehow for the first time looked closely at the Product Name column and then proceeded to call myself many variations of an idiot. 🙄
Not sure how long it has taken me to spot the blindingly obvious but it has been a while. Up till now I had been applying one of the BIG-IQ Centralised Management (CM) licences as highlighted in the red box. Tried one of the BIG-IQ Virtual Edition (VE) licences and it works exactly as it should with the option I wanted available.
Thanks to everyone who has offered assistance with this - next time I will try and pay a little bit more attention to what I am doing. 😉
- Paulius
MVP
This could be a limitation of the license that you're applying. Have you tried running through the CM install using the "Skip License" option?
- leemedz
I would be surprised if it is a limitation of the licence since it is a VE Trial Edition version. Also I activated this using the Automatic option and it worked as I would expect so I don't see it being a limitation and while I could be wrong though it doesn't feel right to me.
Re: using the 'Skip License' option - I did try that and that gives me the option to create a BIG-IQ Data Collection Device or a License Manager but the option I require is still greyed out.
- leemedz
Been looking at this some more and wondering if I have found the issue.
The processors definitely support virtualisation as I have checked it using the 'Intel_Processor_Identification_Utility-Legacy' tool for this and that comes up OK if I have Hyper-V disabled - see below:
If I then enable Hyper-V the settings change with both Intel VT and Intel VT-x no longer showing as enabled.
If I open up Task Manger and look at the CPU details then that does show virtualisation as enabled so it looks as if Hyper-V has taken the role of the Hypervisor and 'disabled' this in BIOS:
That I think is the issue here - the BIG-IQ setup checks for Intel VT-x, can't see that Hyper-V has taken over virtualisation duties and so I don't get the option to build a BIG-IQ. Looking at the requirements listed in the Hyper-V Set up guide would appear to back up my initial thoughts that this could be the problem:
The hypervisor CPU must meet the following requirements :
- Use a 64-bit architecture.Have support for virtualization (AMD-V or Intel VT-x) enabled.
- Support a one-to-one thread-to-defined virtual CPU ratio, or (on single-threading architectures) support at least one core per defined virtual CPU.
- Intel processors must be from the Core (or newer) workstation or server family of CPUs.
Does that make sense or have I disappeared down an enormous rabbit hole of my own making on a sunny day when I could be better off outside enjoying myself? 😆
Assuming I am right then the next question is how do I get around it or am I doomed? 🤔
- LiefZimmerman
Admin
Did you ever sort this out? leemedz
- leemedz
I never did manage to get this sorted but I keep coming back to it from time to time to see if I can get it to work (without success so far).
Trying again today. Still on the same hardware (HP z640 Workstation \ 24 Cores \ 128GB Ram running Win 11) and the current setup is on ESXi (running inside VMware Worrkstation 17) and trying version 8.1 with the 'BIG-IQ-8.1.0-0.0.244.vmware.ova' file. That has been configured with 8 cores and 32GB RAM - licenced the VM with a trial licence and running into the same issue again.
Have also tried to spin up a VM on my other PC (16GB RAM and 4 cores) and again exactly the same issue is seen.
Any assistance would be most welcome as really could do with a working BIG-IQ for testing purposes.
- leemedz
Went back to have a look at this again today and somehow for the first time looked closely at the Product Name column and then proceeded to call myself many variations of an idiot. 🙄
Not sure how long it has taken me to spot the blindingly obvious but it has been a while. Up till now I had been applying one of the BIG-IQ Centralised Management (CM) licences as highlighted in the red box. Tried one of the BIG-IQ Virtual Edition (VE) licences and it works exactly as it should with the option I wanted available.
Thanks to everyone who has offered assistance with this - next time I will try and pay a little bit more attention to what I am doing. 😉
