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

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Centralized Management

  • 8.3.0, 8.2.0, 8.1.0, 8.0.0, 7.1.0
Manual Chapter

Create BIG-IQ VE Instances Without Azure Marketplace Access

How do I create a BIG-IQ VE instance 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.

Download the BIG-IQ VE image

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.

Upload the BIG-IQ VE .vhd file to the Azure container using AZCopy

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.
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.

Create a BIG-IQ VE instance from the Azure portal

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.
  4. From the Azure portal, click
    All Services
    Virtual Machines
  5. Click the
    Add
    button.
  6. 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.
  7. Complete the
    Management blade
    , and click
    Next
    .
  8. Complete the
    Settings blade
    and click
    OK
    .
  9. For
    Boot Diagnostics
    , select
    Off
    .
  10. Review the summary and click
    Create
    .
To view the instance, go to
All services
Virtual machine.