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

(applies to BIG-IP TMOS Edition)


To assist operational teams 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, and you are in either Canada or the US 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, log into my.f5.com (separate login from DevCentral), navigate down to the Downloads card under the Support Resources section of the page.  Select BIG-IP from the product group family and then the current version of BIG-IP. 

You will be presented with a list of options, at the bottom, select the Virtual-Edition option that has the following descriptions:

  • For VMware Fusion or Workstation or ESX/i: Image fileset for VMware ESX/i Server
  • For Microsoft HyperV: Image fileset for Microsoft Hyper-V
  • KVM RHEL/CentoOS:  Image file set for KVM Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS

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 for development or 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 Mar 12, 2025
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  • djeff_375138's avatar
    djeff_375138
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Nov 02, 2018

    Chase, CDW said F5 requires a company name and website; meaning it's up to F5 to accept it or not. I'll reach out CDW again and see if your suggestion will work. I'll keep you posted. And thanks for the quick response.

     

  • Chase_Abbott's avatar
    Chase_Abbott
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Nov 05, 2018

    Hrm. I created a new account on CDW and stated "personal" use. I just bought the lab edition and the company name was optional on the US site. Order went through no issues. Lemme see what I can screw around with on the Canada site.

     

  • Chase_Abbott's avatar
    Chase_Abbott
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Nov 05, 2018

    Created a new account at CDW Canada and Company name is optional during checkout if my account I listed as "Personal Use".

     

  • djeff_375138's avatar
    djeff_375138
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Nov 06, 2018

    THIS IS THE PART I TRIED TO ORDER: Mfg. Part: F5-BIG-VE-LAB-V16 UNSPSC: 43233204

     

    THIS IS CDW CONFIRMING I'M USING PERSONAL ACCOUNT AND F5 CANCELLED THE ORDER: You’re already set up under consumer, that’s not the issue. From what I’m understanding, this license is only for businesses. They have already cancelled back this order, I’m not sure where to go from here.

     

    Chase, if you process the order, you would go through the same hurdles as I. From CDW perspective, it's F5 that is making the calls. Where do I go from there, cause I can't reach the sales team?

     

  • Chase_Abbott's avatar
    Chase_Abbott
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Nov 06, 2018

    I've reached out to our CDW team to find out what's going on. I used an alternate account for the CDW US to make my purchase and I haven't been rejected so we'll see what we can find out.

     

    I suggest we take this offline so we can discuss order specifics. Please use the https://devcentral.f5.com/contact to hit up my team and I can continue this conversation. The contact form goes to my team only so only DC admins (5 of us) will review the content.

     

  • Colin_Stubbs's avatar
    Colin_Stubbs
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Dec 17, 2018

    You can already order a lab license for BIG-IQ, SKU should be F5-BIQ-VE-LAB or similar, there's SKU's to add additional device management capacity, e.g. F5-ADD-BIQ-LAB-25

     

  • Sjoerd_Krol_340's avatar
    Sjoerd_Krol_340
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Jan 14, 2019

    I can't order them via cdw....both Canada and US are blocking Europeans I guess.... Any other easy way to obtain a lab license?

     

  • Chase_Abbott's avatar
    Chase_Abbott
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Jan 23, 2019

    @Sjoerd_Krol. Easy? No. For non North American end users, purchasing through a partner is the only method currently available. Do you have a partner you currently work with?

     

  • Hendry_Chandra's avatar
    Hendry_Chandra
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    May 23, 2019

    Response on the 2 CDW Links above:

     

    Access Denied

    You do not have permission to access the site on this server.

    Reference#:18.94070572.1558592844.2bd5034d

    Time: May 23 2019 06:27:25

     

    Access Denied

    You do not have permission to access the site on this server.

    Reference#:18.9f070572.1558592845.24a1ec9a

    Time: May 23 2019 06:27:26

     

    Perhaps this article is not related/valid anymore? But it was just released?

     

    The DevCentral Team (F5 Networks) published this new Knowledge.

    May 14, 2019 at 7:40 PM

     

    Thanks