Release notes¶
Release notes for F5 Insight 1.0, the on-premises observability and operational strategy solution for F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform.
Version 1.0 | March 2026
| Product | F5 Insight |
| Version | 1.0 |
| Release date | March 2026 |
| Deployment model | On-premises / self-hosted |
| Document revision | 1.0 |
About this release¶
F5 Insight 1.0 is the first generally available release of F5’s on-premises observability and operational strategy solution for F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP). This release integrates with and provides unified visibility that spans applications and infrastructure for the BIG-IP ecosystem.
This release focuses on three core capabilities:
- High-fidelity telemetry pipelines for collecting real-time operational data
- Fleet-wide BIG-IP intelligence and inventory visibility built by F5 experts, spanning application delivery and security services and devices
- Artificial Intelligence/Large Language Model (AI/LLM) and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations that help operations teams find answers quickly and surface improvement opportunities through a natural language interface backed by live device data
System requirements¶
Host platform¶
| Component | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Operating system | F5-supported image |
| Architecture | x86_64 (AMD64) |
| CPU | Minimum eight vCPUs |
| Memory | Minimum 16 GB RAM |
| Storage | 500 GB minimum for default retention policy |
| Hypervisor images | QCOW and OVA |
Managed BIG-IP devices¶
| Component | Requirement |
|---|---|
| BIG-IP version | 17.5.x |
| Modules | Local Traffic Manager (LTM) required; DNS, Advanced Web Application Firewall (AWAF), Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM), Access Policy Manager (APM), Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT), and SSL Orchestrator (SSLO) supported |
| Management access | iControl REST API enabled; HTTPS reachable from F5 Insight host |
| Telemetry iRule | High-speed logging (HSL) enabled; syslog reachable from collector listener |
Highlighted features¶
Fleet management and visibility¶
- Unified inventory dashboard for all registered BIG-IP devices, displaying health status, software version, licensed modules, and connectivity state.
- Near real-time virtual server, pool, and pool member status across the full device fleet from a single console.
- Configuration snapshot history with per-object change diff visibility, so you can track which changes occurred and how many.
- Fleet-wide search across virtual servers, pools, iRules, profiles, SSL certificates, and data groups.
- Certificate expiration tracking.
- Device grouping and tagging for logical fleet organization by datacenter.
Telemetry¶
- Views, dashboards, and intelligence built by F5 experts that surface the metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter most for operations teams.
- Real-time collection of performance metrics across LTM, DNS, AWAF, AFM, SSL Orchestrator, CGNAT, and Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA, formerly APM) modules through iControl REST.
- Application-layer telemetry through iRule-based HSL collection, capturing virtual server traffic signals for classification and anomaly detection.
- Top 10 dashboards for various KPIs that provide context by CPU utilization, memory consumption, virtual IP (VIP) bandwidth, active connections, and more.
AI/LLM and MCP integration¶
- AI/LLM and MCP integration connects a locally hosted large language model to live fleet data through an MCP server layer.
- Natural language query interface for fleet-wide operational questions. Ask about device health, configuration state, traffic anomalies, or security posture in plain language.
- Simplify and streamline time-consuming manual processes like root cause analysis and authoring action and remediation plans.
- Respond to performance gaps and application outages more quickly and effectively to help ensure uptime and improve end-user digital experiences.
- The MCP server exposes structured fleet data—capturing inventory, telemetry, configuration snapshots, and classification results—as context for LLM reasoning.
- Responses are grounded in live data from VictoriaMetrics and ClickHouse.
AI-driven features (limited availability)¶
F5 Insight 1.0 introduces AI-driven features through F5 AI Data Fabric (AIDF) as a limited availability capability. This AI integration extends the platform’s telemetry and helps operations teams use application data to classify workloads, enhance analyses, and use workload intelligence and security posture assessments to improve their application portfolio.
Note
AIDF integration is available to select customers in this release. Access requires separate enrollment. Contact your F5 account team.
- Automated workload classification — Surfaces application type, traffic behavior, and runtime characteristics per virtual server. These are derived from live telemetry without manual configuration.
- Security scoring — Analyzes observed traffic patterns, protocol usage, and application signals to produce a continuous per-virtual-server risk score, updated each collection cycle.
- Application Intelligence panel — Results appear in the F5 Insight dashboard under the Application Intelligence panel, with drill-down available per device and per virtual server.
Fixed issues¶
This is the first generally available release of F5 Insight. There are no resolved issues to report.
Upgrade Considerations¶
This is the initial release of F5 Insight. There are no upgrade or migration steps required.
For future releases, this section will include:
- Supported upgrade paths
- Pre-upgrade requirements and backup procedures
- Post-upgrade verification steps
- Breaking changes or deprecated features that affect existing deployments