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.
- Deploying F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition on VMware Fusion
- Deploying F5 BIG-IP in Microsoft Azure for Developers
- Deploying F5 BIG-IP in AWS for Developers
- Deploying F5 BIG-IP in Windows Server Hyper-V for Developers
- Deploying F5 BIG-IP in VMware vCloud Director and ESX for Developers
152 Comments
- Chase_Abbott
Admin
@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?
MichealRP_61305Nimbostratus
I was looking to obtain a lab license to validate software updates and such, but from what I can tell, if I were to purchase this, it would be locked into a specific version. To me, this defeats the purpose of having a lab to begin with. If I'm mistaken, I apologize, but from comments such as "currently, I can not reuse the license on another ova version" and "Talking to F5 support while they could reactivate it for 12.0, they couldn't for 12.1." I'm hesitant to start the process of getting one just to find out that it's locked to a specific version once purchased.
- Chase_Abbott
@Torinketo;
I agree with you 100%. DevCentral is working on raising this issue through our management and I forwarded this on to my superiors for example.
- Torinketo_32840
Purchasing a license through CDW was a nightmare. Please consider a better alternative, this doesn't make sense.
jay_41195I am still not able to buy Lab edition, why is it this difficult? Why create a product for the purpose of LAB with a cost but not have it available, I cant find any Australian re-sellers that will sell it.
DoubleM_268889+1 for emea resellers issue ....
- Chase_Abbott
@Colin Stubbs;
I agree 100% with you and this bothers many of us at F5 who find out people cannot get dev/lab licenses easily. I've raised your comment to my mgmt team as further evidence that this process is very broken.
Colin_StubbsAltostratus
Apologies all; due to the way in which F5 insists on selling... e.g. a ~$100 product in the same way as they sell a ~$1,000,000.00 product... offering lab licenses to the general public is no longer viable for Equate or the distributor we have to use to fulfill the order. It costs too much in terms of staff time to handle.
I strongly suggest you contact F5 directly, via any AM/SE's etc that you have access to, and ask them when F5 will jump forward to the year 2017 and provide a portal which will accept credit card payment in multiple currencies; in order to automate the very simple process of providing a generated registration key for an entirely digitally delivered product that's desired globally.
Matt_Fahrner_82Note that I did try "reactivation" and that didn't work. Talking to F5 support while they could reactivate it for 12.0, they couldn't for 12.1. I am contacting our sales to find out more.
hadighz_293720Hi Matt, I'm having the same problem. I contacted support and they accepted to release the license so I can use it once again. but couple of hours later, i checked the registration key using the license validation tool (https://secure.f5.com/validate/validate.jsp) and it returned locked status for the license. currently, I can not reuse the license on another ova version. please let me know if you have found any solution. Thanks
