Managing BIG-IP Licensing With BIG-IQ
If the article title doesn't have you excited, I don't know what else to do. You know BIG-IQ centralizes management and analytics of BIG-IP and Per-App Virtual Editions across your enterprise. Were you aware that BIG-IQ can run as a License Manager to simplify more complicated subscription and license pool requirements... for free? Subscriptions, RegKey Pools, offline licensing, and all the other customer requirements made licensing a quagmire that BIG-IQ License Manager can help solve. Below you will find several resources to assist configuring BIG-IQ as a License Manager or just simply manage a few licenses.
Configuring BIG-IQ as a License Manager
This video provides a walk through demonstration of setting up BIG-IQ as a License Manager. If you already have BIG-IQ running as a Configuration Manager, you already have this working. I recommend watching this on Youtube directly.
How to Manage Licenses Within BIG-IQ
This video provides a detailed walkthrough example of how to manage subscription licenses within BIG-IQ. I recommend watching this on Youtube directly.
Further Resources:
BIG-IQ Centralized Management: BIG-IP VE Subscriptions - The document you want when configuring BIG-IQ as License Manager or how to manage licenses within BIG-IQ.
AskF5 K77706009: Using BIG-IQ License Manager to remotely manage BIG-IP Virtual Edition licenses
Published Sep 04, 2018
Version 1.0
Chase_Abbott
Employee
EmployeeChase_AbbottEmployee
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guidem15_338787Altostratus
Thanks Kyle Oliver. I'm trying to achieve that using the cloud init onboard (usually used for Azure). However if you have some practical examples of what you said, it could help :)
Kyle_OliverCurrently, BIG-IQ can only push licenses to BIG-IP, there is no way for BIG-IP to pull a license from a BIG-IQ. That being said, a number of customers have automated the push of the license to the BIG-IP after the management address is available.
- guidem15_338787
Hello,
I'm managing the implemention of an important number of Big-IP VE edition on third party virtualized environment (servers running KVM).
I would like to know if there is an automatic way for the Big-IP to request a license within a licensing pool on the Big-iq?
Thanks a lot !
dragonflymrCirrostratus
Hi,
@Key - Thanks for info, hope it will be implemented. Not most important feature but sill nice to have.
Piotr
@jennings.harlen - you are quite welcome, come back here with any questions you may have.
- Kyle_Oliver
We have the service contract reporting and alerting in our backlog for BIG-IQ, but it is not yet tied to a release. It would likely require that the BIG-IQ has access to pull this data directly (or via a proxy) from F5, to make sure we have the latest data.
Poitr, I am not aware of any plans at this point. I can check with the product manager and/or ask him to reply.
- dragonflymr
Hi,
That was my impression. Thanks for confirmation. Do you know about any plans to implement any of those functionalities?
Piotr
Hi, BIG-IQ only supports BIG-IP VE licensing, there is no support for BIG-IP hardware-based licenses/regkeys at this time.
BIG-IQ does not support service contract management at this time.
-jc
Centralised support contract management/reporting would be fantastic. Having License Manager available as a part of the CM module has been a great help keeping track of many licenses as VEs come and go.
