Manual Chapter : Create BIG-IQ VE Instances Without Azure Marketplace Access

Applies To:

  • BIG-IQ Centralized Management

    8.4.0, 8.3.0, 8.2.0, 8.1.0, 8.0.0, 7.1.0

Updated Date: 07/07/2026

Create BIG-IQ VE Instances Without Azure Marketplace Access

If you don’t have access to BIG-IQ Centralized Management VE images in the Azure Marketplace (searching on F5 returns no results), you can upload and create your own.

To create a BIG-IQ VE instance, you’ll complete these tasks:

  • Download the BIG-IQ VE tar file from downloads.f5.com.

  • Create an Azure storage account and container.

  • Upload the BIG-IQ VE virtual hard disk file to the Azure container.

  • Deploy the BIG-IQ VE instance.

The first task is to get the BIG-IQ VE tar file and extract the virtual hard disk (.vhd) from it.

  1. Download the Azure-Cloud BIG-IQ VE tar file from downloads.f5.com.

  2. Unzip the .zip file to your local drive.

    You can use 7-Zip to do this if you’re using Windows.

  3. Extract .vhd from the .tar file.

    You can use 7-Zip to do this if you’re using Windows.

Next, upload the BIG-IQ VE .vhd file to an Azure storage account and container.

Before you can upload the BIG-IQ VE .vhd file to Azure, you’ll have to create the Azure container and gathered the following information:

  • The name of the directory where the .vhd is stored, for example: c:\vhd
  • The path to the container, for example: https://teststorage.blob.core.windows.net/testcontainer
  • The name of the file, for example: F5_Networks-BIGIQ-<version-build#>.vhd
  • The access key for the storage account, which you can get by opening the storage account, clicking Access keys and copying the key value.

Use AZCopy to upload the BIG-IQ VE .vhd file to Azure to make it available to create a BIG-IQ VE instance.

Note: Alternatively, you can use Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer. Or, you can use the Azure portal to navigate to the storage account container, click the Upload button, click the container, and choose Page blob from the Blob type list. Refer to the Azure documentation for more information about those options.

  1. Open a command-line and change to the AZCopy directory: cd %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\AzCopy

  2. Run the command: AzCopy.exe /source:c:\vhd /dest:https://teststorage.blob.core.windows.net/testcontainer /BlobType:page /pattern:F5_Networks-BIGIIQ-<version-build#>_.vhd /destkey:<key_value>

You can now create BIG-IQ VE instances from this file.

After you’ve got the BIG-IQ VE .vhd file uploaded to Azure, you can deploy BIG-IQ VE instances.

Create a BIG-IQ VE image from the BIG-IQ VE .vhd file to deploy a single-NIC configuration of BIG-IQ.

  1. From the Azure portal, click All Services > Images.

  2. Click the Add button.

  3. Complete the Create image and click Create.

Name

Name of the BIG-IQ image

Location

Region for the BIG-IP VE.

OS type

Select Linux.

Storage blob

Provide the URL link to the storage account .VHD image.

Storage type

Premium SSD

Caching

Read/Write

Resource group

Create one or choose an existing one.

  1. From the Azure portal, click All Services > Virtual Machines

  2. Click the Add button.

  3. Complete the Basics blade and click OK.

Name

Name of the BIG-IQ VE

Location

Region for the BIG-IP VE (same as the BIG-IQ image).

Image

Select Browse all public and private images and select the BIG-IQ image you created in step 3.

Size

Make sure the instance has at least 2 vCPU and 4GB of memory. For each additional vCPU, add at least 2GB of memory.

Authentication type

Select an authentic type. SSH key is recommended.

  1. Complete the Management blade, and click Next.

  2. Complete the Settings blade and click OK.

  3. For Boot Diagnostics, select Off.

  4. Review the summary and click Create.

To view the instance, go to All services > Virtual machine.