When is F5 going to develop a Virtual Appliance for LTM, GTM, and other options. One of your competitors, Zeus (http://www.zeus.com/products/zxtmva/) has had one for over two years. I am a happy F5 customer but would like more options. A virtual appliance would provide a way for customers and potential customers to demo the products with no hardware required and would be perfect for development & test environments. Zeus allows limited usage of their virtual appliance for dev/test environments for free - hint hint F5.

There is a CR which notes the request to allow customers to run BIG-IP software virtually. It's CR81856. If you want to raise the visibility of this request, open a case with F5 Support using https://websupport.f5.com and request to have your case attached to this CR. The justification I provided when opening a case was: - Being able to run BIG-IP software in vmware would be a simple, cheap way to test layer 7 configurations, like iRules, WAM, ASM security policies. - It would reduce the need to perform functional testing on live equipment. - I believe the main functionality already exists, but hasn't been released to customers. - There have been numerous requests on DevCentral from customers who want to be able to test iRules in a simulator. I think using a vmware instance would meet their requirements. Here are a few related posts: http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&view=topic&postid=20628 http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=5&tpage=1&view=topic&postid=1573515772 http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=46&postid=22105&view=topic Thanks, Aaron

has there been any movment on this?

Hi palekafa, I haven't heard of anything from F5 on this. The best way to check would be to open a case with F5 Support. Assuming they haven't decided to support running in vmware, you could ask them to attach your case to CR81856. Aaron

Any update on this? I need to test some scripting out that one of our guys put together on a box with a Prod. Configuration.

I don't think there have been any updates. As mentioned before, it would help if you opened a case with F5 Support with an explanation of why the feature would help you. You can ask to have your case attacked to CR81856. Thanks, Aaron

F5 Virtual Appliance

31 Replies

hooleylist
Cirrostratus
Apr 02, 2008
There is a CR which notes the request to allow customers to run BIG-IP software virtually. It's CR81856. If you want to raise the visibility of this request, open a case with F5 Support using https://websupport.f5.com and request to have your case attached to this CR. The justification I provided when opening a case was:

- Being able to run BIG-IP software in vmware would be a simple, cheap way to test layer 7 configurations, like iRules, WAM, ASM security policies.

- It would reduce the need to perform functional testing on live equipment.

- I believe the main functionality already exists, but hasn't been released to customers.

- There have been numerous requests on DevCentral from customers who want to be able to test iRules in a simulator. I think using a vmware instance would meet their requirements. Here are a few related posts:

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&view=topic&postid=20628

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=5&tpage=1&view=topic&postid=1573515772

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=46&postid=22105&view=topic

Thanks,

Aaron
palekafa_69933
Nimbostratus
Feb 16, 2009
has there been any movment on this?
hooleylist
Cirrostratus
Feb 17, 2009
Hi palekafa,

I haven't heard of anything from F5 on this. The best way to check would be to open a case with F5 Support. Assuming they haven't decided to support running in vmware, you could ask them to attach your case to CR81856.

Aaron
jba3126
Cirrus
Apr 16, 2009
Any update on this? I need to test some scripting out that one of our guys put together on a box with a Prod. Configuration.
hooleylist
Cirrostratus
Apr 20, 2009
I don't think there have been any updates. As mentioned before, it would help if you opened a case with F5 Support with an explanation of why the feature would help you. You can ask to have your case attacked to CR81856.

Thanks,

Aaron
hooleylist
Cirrostratus
Jun 30, 2009
I've seen v10 licensed and running on a laptop in vmware, so I don't think it's a question of the development effort anymore--more a business decision.

Aaron
mr_skater99_640
Nimbostratus
Aug 06, 2009
We're just starting to move to vmware lab for our dev environments - and this would make the complete the environment and make the whole thing self service.

We'd still be running the physical boxes in prod...
jmaslyn_44564
Nimbostratus
Dec 14, 2009
None of this seems concrete, has anybody gotten F5 to run on VMWare "with" a license and what default OS would you use. Where are the ISO images?
hooleylist
Cirrostratus
Dec 14, 2009
I think when 10.1 is released, F5 will provide a version of LTM which can be run in VMware. I've heard 10.1 should be out some time soon (matter of days or weeks).

Prior to this, you had to have an internal license from F5 to do it.

Aaron
The_Bhattman
Nimbostratus
Dec 14, 2009
From what I understand the VMware version will be stripped of certain items that make it unique to the hardware. For example you probably will not see any SSL acceleration.

Bhattman