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

 , this link will only work within the US.

See my post above yours.

Cheers,

Kees

this would be nice... if you could get cdw to actually send you a license key.... its been two weeks waiting for one and i've already paid...

I cannot get any traction on this whatsoever. I'm trying to buy 3 lab licenses. The "(16)" version isn't the current version 15. Not understanding the CDW naming conventions, I original tried to buy it via the "(18)" version. CDW said that F5 requested a purchase order, meaning F5 assumed it was an upgrade license that CDW is charging $121.99 for, which makes no sense at all. Maintenance contract for a lab license should be less that $30. Long story short, after two MONTHS of back and forth with CDW, they provided zero guidance on what product would get a reaction from F5 that is NOT "send us a purchase order number". Is anyone getting the licenses they need? I'm so angry about this. I support the federal government as a contractor, and I need this personal test environment. I built an ESXi for this sole purpose, and it is collecting dust now. I have called, emailed and submitted forms to the F5 sales office... Zilch. They just do not give a !@#$ about independent engineers. This used to be hard, but now it seems impossible. Should I just try again to order "(16)" and hope it's somehow a better option than "(18)"? I tell you, no one at CDW has a clue about any of the F5 products. I end up having to guide the narrative in talking to F5, but in the end that doesn't even matter.

Thank you, WeaverJK! I just got in touch with my fed rep, and that is sounding promising so far. I may even get 3 temp licenses while things are sorted out with payments for the actuals. I'm hoping to have these VEs up by Monday or Tuesday. If for some reason traction fails on it, I'll comment here again. I know multiple engineers who are all stuck with this, and all of them work for fed agencies or multi-nationals. It's just stunning to me that this has become this painful for all of us.

Jer,

I understand your frustration.

This should be as easy as putting 3 lab licenses in your cart at CDW and making the purchase. Then, CDW contacts F5. F5 fulfills the order by providing the license keys to CDW. CDW then delivers the keys to you. Not the best method, but relatively straight forward.

I haven't seen any "18" option. I would simply buy the 16 and go from there. The versioning shouldn't matter. It's a lab license and you then have access to a wide range of versions to work with (I recall seeing a range from 9-11 when I bought my lab licenses). Certain versions were not available, like the latest at the time, so it was a little frustrating, but several versions were available for use with the license.

Another route - although this may be a pain too - is to reach out to a vendor that supplies licenses to the U.S. Government. For example, my Lab Renewals are done through World Wide Technologies.

Best wishes,

John

(and, just after writing this, I see an e-mail that said you did just that.... good luck!)

If you search for "f5 lab" (no quotes), and order the list from least expensive, you'll see (16) and two (18)s. These all seem to be the same bs, though perhaps (16) is the secret door. The fact is that I just guessed at which was the right one, choosing (18) a couple months back, and neither CDW nor F5 had any clue about how to fix the situation. Perhaps you're right about (16), but it's a crapshoot in my opinion. I'm going to try to acquire these through my fed rep unless that ultimately doesn't pan out. The rep and I are hoping he can get internal traction to try to get attention focused at F5 on the CDW problem.

i tried using another vendor shi dot com and they rejected my order b/c i wasnt a registered business...

i don't think a govt supplier could help in this either...

cdw dragged their feet for over a month... saying something about putting in a quote or whatever... i wound up cancelling as i already have two of the 16.x licenses. wanted to get an 18.x which they show "IN STOCK"

f5 18 lab

i kept getting these unhelpful responses from CDW team:

On Thu, Mar x 2020 Josseline Romero Hernandez <CustomerRelations@cdw.com> wrote:

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for contacting CDW Customer Relations. we apologies for the inconvenience regarding order # 1xxxxx. This order is on hold and requires the sales team to further assist. you can reach them at 800-800-4239 opt 2.

Please let us know if you have any questions or if we can further assist.

Kind Regards,

Josseline Romero

Customer Relations

CDW Inc.

Phone: 800-800-4239 option 2

 EXACTLY what happened to me, even after I escalated it in their sales and customer service departments!

Here is what the CDW product list looks like. These do not resemble the titles that existed 4 years ago, which did not have parenthesis on the versions. Again, my impression is that F5 thinks these are upgrades while CDW thinks they are full licenses, and neither company wants to fix this problem when the root cause is discovered. At least, that's what happed with version (18). If anyone buys a (16) license at this point and succeeds in obtaining it, please post your experience here. I will try again later, if I can't get mine through my fed rep.