Manual Chapter : Device Resource Management

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Cloud

  • 4.4.0
Manual Chapter

About device discovery and management

You use BIG-IQ Device to centrally manage resources located on BIG-IP devices in your local network, in a public cloud like Amazon EC2, or in a combination of both.

The first step to managing devices is making BIG-IQ Device aware of them through the discovery process. To discover a device, you provide BIG-IQ Device the device IP address, user name, and password. Alternatively, you can upload a CSV file to discover a large number of devices. When you discover a device you place it into a group. These groups help you organize devices with similar features, like those in a particular department or running a certain software version.

After you discover devices, you can view and export inventory details about those devices for easy asset management.

Discovering BIG-IP devices in your network

After you license and perform the initial configuration for the BIG-IQ system, you can discover BIG-IP devices running version 11.3 or later. For proper communication, you must configure each F5 device you want to manage with a route to the BIG-IQ system. If you do not specify the required network communication route between the devices, then device discovery fails.

You can discover a device by providing the BIG-IQ system with the device's IP address, user name, and password.

  1. Hover over the Devices header, click the + icon when it appears, and then select Discover Device.
  2. For devices on the same subnet as the BIG-IQ system, in the IP Address field, type the IP address of the device. You cannot discover a BIG-IP device using its management IP address.
  3. When the BIG-IQ system and the BIG-IP device are on different subnets, you must create a route:
    1. Use SSH to log in to the BIG-IQ system's management IP address as the root user.
    2. Type the following command: tmsh create net route <route name> {gw <x.x.x.x> network default}
    Where <route name> is a user-provided name to identify the new route, and <x.x.x.x> is the IP address of the default gateway for the internal network.
  4. To change the root user name, type a new name in the Root User Name field.
  5. Type a password for the root user in the Root Password field.
  6. In the Admin User Name and Admin Password fields, type the administrator user name and password for the managed device.
  7. Select the Auto Update Framework check box to direct the BIG-IQ system to perform any required REST framework updates on the BIG-IP device. For the BIG-IQ system to properly manage a BIG-IP device, the BIG-IP device must be running the most recent REST framework. If you do not select the Auto Update Framework check box before you click the Add button, a message displays prompting you do update the framework or cancel the task.
  8. Click the Add button.
BIG-IQ System populates the properties of the device that you added, and displays the device in the Devices panel.

Viewing and exporting device inventory details

You can view detailed data about the managed devices in your network. Information includes associated IP addresses, platform type, license details, software version, and so forth. In addition to viewing this information, you can also export it to a CSV file and edit the data as required to create reports for asset management.

  1. Log in to BIG-IQ Device with your administrator user name and password.
  2. At the top of the screen, click Configuration.
  3. In the Devices panel, click the gear icon next to the device group you want to view, and then click Inventory. The panel expands to display device details.
  4. To export the data to a CSV file, click the Export button. You can modify the report as required in Microsoft Excel.