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Ireda's avatar
Ireda
Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
Jan 22, 2024

F5 License

Hello, Please, can you clarify what is the difference between the below types of F5 licenses? - Evaluation licenses = - Demonstration licenses = - Perpetual licenses = - Subscription licenses = ...
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F5 License
  • AForseth's avatar
    AForseth
    Jan 29, 2024

    Hi Ireda,

    If you buy a Hardware device, you will be able to run that device until it is End of Life. But you need to have an active support contract to be able to open support cases and upgrade the software. The hardware will eventually go out of software/technical support.

    When it comes to Virtual Edition, if you bought a VE that ends with -V16 (i.e F5-BIG-LTM-VE-1G-V16) you can upgrade to 16.x, not 17.x. 
    To upgrade to 17.x you then needs to buy a new license that ends with -V18 that can be upgraded to 18.x. 
    https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K91944656

    As of now, 17.1.x is the latest release and will be supported until March 31, 2027.
    https://my.f5.com/manage/s/article/K5903

    Hope this answer your question. 

    Best Regards
    Andréas

whisperer's avatar
whisperer
Icon for MVP rankMVP
Jan 24, 2024

All F5 licenses expire... at some point. However, at a high leve, here are the differences:

- Evaluation: temp license linked to a customer, with the anticipation of a potential sale if certain objective criteria are met.

- Demo: what partner engineers usually get, that isnt tied to a customer. You can test the product.

- Perpetual: Differs between physical and virtual hardware. On physical hardware, it is forever, until the device is End of Life or you destroy it. On virtual hardware, it is linked to BIG-IP version with the license indicating the versions of code it is/will be good for. This is the CapEx model.

- Subscription: rent model. You need to renew annualy or the box stops working. Most corporations are going this route as it secures a stable revenue stream over time, and not massive swings usually associated with refresh cycles. Also note, with everything going generally cloud and contstant development pipelines, you have an instance that keeps getting upgraded without much change to versioning. So you kinda have to shift to subscription. This is the OpEx model.

Hope this helps?

  • Ireda's avatar
    Ireda
    Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
    Jan 25, 2024

    Hi support,

    Thanks for your reply.

    but I did not understand what you meant: Perpetual: On virtual hardware, it is linked to the BIG-IP version with the license indicating the versions of code it is/will be good for. This is the CapEx model.

     

    Can you give me an example please, when it will expire exactly if i use version 17.1.1.