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.
I know this is not cloud related question but are there any plans to include hardware keys management as well as maybe license contracts management in BIG-IQ?
Are you referring to license keys for hardware appliances? If so, it does that and can do that in parallel with other license types.
Regarding license contracts, are there specific types of contract licensing you're referring to? BIG-IQ will do subscription and volume key management offline and online (offline you'd pull a subscription report and submit it to F5).
I've seen several demos of various license states so I may be able to share some of that up if I know what I'm looking for.
I was under impression that BIG-IQ can manage Base Registration Key (BRK) only for BIG-IP VE, seems that I am wrong.
Where in BIG-IQ I should look to see hardware BRK? Devices > LICENSE MANAGEMENT > Licenses? Then I can use Add Device to add BRK or Add-on? Sure for hardware managing BRK do not make much sense (those are most of the time embedded) but managing Add-ons makes sense.
When importing BIG-IP there is little info related to serials or BRK displayed in the GUI (Devices > BIG-IP DEVICES > [device name] > PROPERTIES). Only way I found to see serial and BRK was via Export Inventory.
There is as well nothing created in Devices > LICENSE MANAGEMENT > Licenses/Assignments after discovering/importing BIG-IP.
Considering license contracts I was not precise. I meant Service Contacts (like L1-L3) for hardware and modules installed. Just to have all related info in one place. Then it would be great to have ability to set alerts informing that such contracts are about to expire.
Hope it makes more sense now.
If you can provide mentioned links it would be great!
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.
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.
Currently, 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.
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 🙂
