Manual Chapter : License usage billing reports

Applies To:

BIG-IQ Centralized Management

  • 8.4.0
back-action License Management

License usage billing reports

A utility billing report provides F5 Networks the information it needs to accurately bill for your license usage. You can manually create and submit a utility billing license usage report to F5, at the frequency specified in your license agreement. You can also create a schedule for generating utility license reports on a regular basis.

When you create a report or a report schedule, keep in mind:

  • If you activated your utility pool on 1-Jan-2019 and generate a report on 1-Feb-2019, the report includes all usage between 1-Jan-2019 and 31-Jan-2019.
  • If you generate another report on 1-Apr-2019, the report includes all usage between 1-Feb-2019 and 31-Mar-2019.

For users to view and create license usage reports, they must have the permissions granted by an administrator. To grant permissions to a user, you complete the four tasks included in this procedure:

  • Create a role type and provide that role type permissions to the licensing service. Steps 1-5.
  • Create a custom resource group, associate it with the licensing service, and add the utility billing report object. Steps 6-10
  • Create a custom role and associate it with the resource group you added. Steps 11-16
  • Add a user and associate it with the role with permissions to the utility billing reports. Steps 17-20

  1. At the top of the screen click System, at the left select ROLE MANAGEMENT > Role Types, and then click the Add button.

  2. Type a Name and an optional Description for this role type.

  3. Towards the middle of the screen, from the Select Service list, select Device, select the check box next to Utility Billing Reporting, and click the Add Selected button.

  4. In the Selected Object Types area, select the Add check box to add a specific type of permission for this role type.

    You might have to decrease the size of the bottom half of the screen (using the horizontal bar right above the Object Type list) to see the permission settings.

  5. Click the Save & Close button.

  6. On the left, under ROLE MANAGEMENT click , and then click the Add button.

  7. Type a Name and an optional Description for this resource group.

  8. Towards the middle of the screen, from the Select Service list, select Device.

  9. From the Select Object Type list, select Utility Billing Reporting, and then click the Add Selected button.

  10. Click Save & Close.

  11. On the left, click Roles.

  12. At the left of the Roles page, select CUSTOM ROLES > Service Roles, and then click the Add button.

  13. Type a Name and an optional Description for this role.

  14. From the Role Type list, select the custom role type that you created.

  15. From the Resource Groups Available list, select the custom resources group you created, and move it to the Selected list.

  16. Click Save & Close.

  17. On the far left, select USER MANAGEMENT > Users, and then click the Add button.

  18. Type a User Name, Full Name, and Password for this user.

  19. From the Roles Available list, select the custom role you created, and move it to the Selected list.

  20. Click Save & Close.

This user now has permissions to create, view, and submit utility license usage reports.

You create a license usage report to submit to F5 Networks for billing purposes.

  1. At the top of the screen, click Configuration.

  2. On the left, click LICENSE MANAGEMENT > Reports.

  3. Click the Generate button.

  4. For Type, select Utility Billing Report.

  5. From the Available list, click the license you want to run a report for, and click the arrow to move it to the Selected list.

  6. Select aSubmission Method.

  7. If you want to obscure the device’s host name and IP address in the report, select Yes for Obfuscate Data.

  8. Click Submit at the bottom of the screen.

When BIG-IQ successfully generates the report and submits it to F5 Networks, it also downloads and it displays in the reports list. If the report fails to create properly, the system displays an error message. If this happens, you can automatically re-submit the report from the license reports screen. Alternatively, you can email a copy to vesubscriptions@f5.com.

Before you can create a license usage billing report schedule, you must be in a role with permissions to view and modify utility billing reports.

Note: If F5 BIG-IQ Centralized Management cannot access api.f5.com or pass traffic through port 443, you must manually submit the report to F5 Networks instead of submitting automatically. Manually submit your report to vesubscriptions@f5.com

You create a schedule so that BIG-IQ can automatically license generate usage reports at the same time every month for all your utility licenses.

  1. At the top of the screen, click Configuration.

  2. On the left, click LICENSE MANAGEMENT > Reports.

  3. Click the Schedule button at the top of the screen.

  4. For Schedule Status, select the Enablecheck box.

  5. Select Automatically submit report to F5 for the Submission Method.

    If BIG-IQ cannot access api.f5.com or pass traffic through port 443, you must manually submit the report to F5 Networks offline, instead of submitting it from BIG-IQ. For information about how to manually submit the report offline, contact F5 Support.

  6. Specify the Day of the Month (from 1 to 28), the Start time hour (from 0 to 23) and minute (from 0 to 59) that you want BIG-IQ to create the utility reports.

  7. If you want to obscure the device’s host name and IP address in the report, select Yes for Obfuscate Data.

  8. If you want BIG-IQ to send an email when the report is created, select the Enable check box for Email Notification, and type one (or more) email address(es) in the box, separated by commas.

  9. Click the Save & Close button.

BIG-IQ will create license usage reports on the day of the month and the time you specified. If you enabled email notification, BIG-IQ also sends a notification to the email address(es) specified to let them know the reports are available. When BIG-IQ successfully generates the report and submits it to F5 Networks, it also displays it in the reports list.

When BIG-IQ Centralized Management creates a license usage report, it retains a copy of that report in the license report list. If you need to re-send a report to F5 (for example, in the event an automatic submission failed), you can do so from that screen.

Note: Alternatively, you can email the report to vesubscriptions@f5.com.

  1. At the top of the screen, click Configuration.

  2. On the left, click LICENSE MANAGEMENT > Reports.

  3. Select the check box next to the utility billing report that you want to send, and click the Send To F5 button.