Welcome to the BIG-IP LTM VE forums

Dev. Team,

 

 

This is simply awesome news - I just got the e-mail for it this morning and I plan to test it out tonight and next week. If we can use a virtual CLI as well as the web interface this would have serious benefits not to just lab work, but team training and multi-scenario testing as well.

 

 

I agree with another post in that multiple versions would be welcome (upgrades and downgrades), particularly for new feature testing, regression). This is particularly important to validate that no functionality breaks during upgrades, but I imagine it's not an easy feature to build in, if at all.

 

 

As also stated earlier, if a renewal license becomes expensive then shops that can use the VE will effectively be set back to square one. We really can't an investment in a virtual lab that will quickly become cost prohibitive. I've been using F5's for the better part of a decade and if the tool remains free or low-cost, then this makes a terrific testing and training platform that helps facilitate real justifications for physical units, upgrades, etc.

 

 

A few quick questions:

 

 

1.) Is full CLI available in the tool?

 

 

2.) Can this perform other CLI features such as Tcpdump, Qkview, etc.

 

 

3.) Will this support authentication & authorization such as full Big-IP's?

 

 

4.) Do you anticipate the ability to upgrade or downgrade the Virtual LTM, provide a multi-version or a version 9 VE? (A virtual LTM that we can upgrade from v9 to v10 and vice versa would be fabulous.)

 

 

5.) Do you anticipate that this remain a free product / free license or low-cost?

 

 

This all being said - a free product such as this is simply wonderful to validate configurations prior to rolling out to our production Big-IP's.

 

 

Well done to the F5 Dev. & programming team for their hard work! I am eagerly looking forward to testing it soon!

 

 

- G