Local Traffic & Network are two parts of centralized management that you use to manage the local traffic (such as servers, nodes, pools, or pool members) and network (such as interfaces, self IP addresses, or VLANs) configuration objects that move your traffic.

Local Traffic & Network helps the user:

• Create efficient work flows to view the Local Traffic & Network configurations in a relational and dynamic user interface.
• Control access to configuration objects using fine-grained, role-based access control (RBAC). This allows administrators to delegate frequently performed operations (for example, enabling or disabling pool members) to the correct team member.
• Maintain ultimate control of the LTM^® configuration by providing a staging option. Delegated team members make all relevant changes, then the administrator can apply them after a quick review.

Local Traffic & Network features include:

• Device discovery with import of local traffic and network objects referenced by discovered devices
• Management of shared objects (such as profiles, monitors, and iRules^®)
• Audit log used to record every local traffic or network change and event
• Role-based access control
• Deployment of configurations from snapshots, and the ability to preview differences between snapshots

Local traffic & network provides a centralized management platform so you can perform all these tasks from a single location. Rather than log in to each device to manage the object configuration locally, it is more expedient to use one interface to manage many devices. Not only does this simplify logistics, but you can maintain a common set of configuration objects and deploy a common set of profiles, monitors, and other shared objects to multiple, similar devices from a central interface.

Bringing a device under central management means that its configuration is stored in the local traffic & network database, which is the authoritative source for all configuration entities. This database is also known as the working configuration or working-configuration set.

In addition, BIG-IQ is aware of functionality that exists in one BIG-IP system version but not in another. This means, for example, that it prohibits using shared objects on BIG-IP devices that do not have the software version required to support them.