on 19-Oct-2016 15:50
One of the key benefits of using virtualized networking appliance is the flexibility in deployment. Let us take a few example scenarios: A system admin would like the option to periodically migrate a virtual appliance from one host to another to balance the compute capacity in a cluster. A cloud service provider (CSP) providing networking as a service (load balancing as a service, firewall as a service) will need to spin up/down virtual appliance as desired depending on the length of the contract (hourly, daily, monthly etc). To meet these needs, the licensing scheme for the virtual appliance must provide the flexibility to move the license as needed. BIG-IQ Centralized Management, F5’s centralized management and orchestration platform provides the ability to manage licenses for BIG-IP Virtual Editions (VE) license pools. A pool is a pack of BIG-IP VE licenses of the same SKU type (For example –a 200Mbps BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) throughput SKU).
With BIG-IQ Centralized Management 5.1 released in September 2016, we have added the capability to enable customers to manage the lifecycle of individual VE licenses. If you need only a license management solution then you can buy just the BIG IQ license manager (referred to as license manager below). With license manager, you can revoke the license from a BIG-IP VE and subsequently reuse the license on any other VE. Here is the summary of the workflow.
Hi, this is not free. The license manager function of BIG IQ can be purchased separately and it is priced much lower than the BIG IQ platform. Please contact the F5 account team for pricing details. The license manager is currently not supported in Azure and is planned for a future release
Is there any charge from F5 for migrating the BIg IQ VE from on premise to a cloud provider?