How to get a F5 BIG-IP VE Developer Lab License

(applies to BIG-IP TMOS Edition)


To assist DevOps teams improve their development for the BIG-IP platform, F5 offers a low cost

developer lab license. This license can be purchased from your authorized F5 vendor.  If you do not have an F5 vendor, you can purchase a lab license online:

 

Once completed, the order is sent to F5 for fulfillment and your license will be delivered shortly after via e-mail.  F5 is investigating ways to improve this process.

To download the BIG-IP Virtual Edition, please log into downloads.f5.com (separate login from DevCentral), and navigate to your appropriate virtual edition, example:

Note: There are also 1 Slot versions of the above images where a 2nd boot partition is not needed for in-place upgrades. These images include _1SLOT- to the image name instead of ALL.

The below guides will help get you started with F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition to develop for VMWare Fusion, AWS, Azure, VMware, or Microsoft Hyper-V.  These guides follow standard practices for installing in production environments and performance recommendations change based on lower use/non-critical needs fo Dev/Lab environments.  Similar to driving a tank, use your best judgement.

 

Note:  F5 Support maintains authoritative Azure, AWS, Hyper-V, and ESX/vCloud installation documentation.  VMware Fusion is not an official F5-supported hypervisor so DevCentral publishes the Fusion guide with the help of our Field Systems Engineering teams.
Updated May 14, 2024
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  • Chase_Abbott's avatar
    Chase_Abbott
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Aug 29, 2017

    @MichealRP;

     

    A lab license would not be useful for you in this case. They are sold at current versions so if you were to test say an v11.6 to v13 upgrade, the lab license wouldn't be able to be downgraded.

     

    If I was doing the upgrade test, I would use the new VE production license in a test environment, run the upgrade. Once complete I would call support to release the license from that activated VE serial number so I can perform the upgrade in production. I've never heard of anyone having issues releasing the license from the activated serial and the call took about 5 to 10 minutes in my prior experiences.

     

    The above experience you're referencing could have been lag between the internal license where support release the license but the public validation tool wasn't synced up yet? Not sure, but I do know that you absolutely you can reuse the license on another VE once it's released from the previous instances SN in our license database. It's supported and a common practice for test environments.

     

    As an FYI, not sure how BIG-IQ License Manager (free) would ease this up, but I will write up an article on that feature set soon (using BIG-IQ as a license manager for lab systems) and maybe that would help you?

     

  • Oliver_Stock_22's avatar
    Oliver_Stock_22
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Nov 13, 2015
    Dear, does anyone know a european seller for the BIP-IP VE lab license? CDW seems to be working for the US only. Best regards, Oliver
  • Oliver_Stock_22's avatar
    Oliver_Stock_22
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Nov 13, 2015
    Dear, does anyone know a european seller for the BIP-IP VE lab license? CDW seems to be working for the US only. Best regards, Oliver
  • Kevin_Davies_40's avatar
    Kevin_Davies_40
    Icon for Nacreous rankNacreous
    Nov 13, 2015
    I tell all my students to get one but the come back and say they cannot order then through there resellers. Apparently there is no money to be made so they won't resell them.