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AlgebraicMirror's avatar
AlgebraicMirror
Icon for Altostratus rankAltostratus
Dec 08, 2015

Did Big-IQ just split into two separate products in version 4.6?

I just upgraded a Big-IQ from 4.5.3 to 4.6, and suddenly the cloud module is gone. I thought it was just a licensing issue, but after re-licensing, it still was gone.

 

So I went out to ask.f5.com and clicked the documentation tab, and instead of there being a listing for each module (Big-IQ Device, Big-IQ cloud, Big-IQ security, etc), there is now a "Big-IQ Centralized Management" product that has a version dropdown consisting only of version 4.6. This appears to be what my Big-IQ has.

 

At the same time, I also noticed there was a new product called "Big-IQ Cloud and Orchestration". It has a version dropdown consisting of just version 1.0.0, and a release date of 11/19/2015.

 

So the overall question is this: did the cloud module just get pulled out of Big-IQ and turned into a separate product called Big-IQ Cloud and Orchestration version 1.0.0? And a followup would be, if this is the case, do you have to set up a separate VE in order to do cloud stuff?

 

BIG-IQ
cloud

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  • Brad_Parker's avatar
    Brad_Parker
    Icon for Cirrus rankCirrus
    Dec 08, 2015

    Yep, lots of fun with BigIQ...

     

    BIG-IQ Cloud and Orchestration 1.0.0 is designed for customers who use NSX or Cisco ACI. If you are leveraging other cloud-related functionality in the current BIG-IQ 4.5.x release, do not migrate to BIG-IQ Cloud and Orchestration 1.0.0 at this time.

     

    Maybe one day it will deliver on the promises made with EM :-)

     

  • Algebraic_Mirror's avatar
    Algebraic_Mirror
    Icon for Cirrostratus rankCirrostratus
    Dec 08, 2015

    This is a BIG change! Thanks for the article, it was a really big help.

     

    This is seriously going to surprise any user who uses cloud though, so I hope they find out about this before trying to upgrade so they aren't caught unaware! According to the article, cloud options like Amazon EC2 can't move forward, and there is no cloud upgrade path no matter what you use, though you can start with a clean install on cloud product if you use NSX or Cisco ACI.

     

    The Big-IQ I was working on upgraded very straightforwardly to the management product, so at least that works well if you are only using it for management today. And actually, if you are only using it for management, I definitely recommend 4.6 based on my experience, because it's fixed a bunch of frustrating bugs, especially the one where SMTP didn't work if your SMTP server didn't require authentication, which is very common. So I like 4.6, but I am a bit confused about the strategy, because I thought F5 was aiming for one centralized management platform, and now it seems like there are two. I'm sure there's a good reason though so I'm hoping someone who knows more can explain the vision.

     

  • Nathan_Pearce_1's avatar
    Nathan_Pearce_1
    Historic F5 Account
    Dec 14, 2015
    Why we did it, and what we did. The intrinsic asymmetric division of BIG-IQ: https://devcentral.f5.com/s/articles/the-intrinsic-asymmetric-division-of-big-iq