BIG-IP device and data center management

Overview

The BIG-IP Settings page lets you onboard BIG-IP devices to F5 Insight and organize them by data center location. You can add devices manually, one at a time, or bulk import them through YAML configuration. This provides flexibility for both small deployments and large-scale fleet onboarding.

Benefits and key features

  • Flexible onboarding — Add devices manually for quick setup or use YAML import for bulk onboarding of large fleets.
  • Data center organization — Group devices by physical or logical data center for easier management, filtering, and reporting.
  • Module-level control — Select which BIG-IP modules to monitor per device, collecting only the telemetry you need.
  • Enhanced AI insights — Data center organization provides valuable location context that enhances large language model (LLM) insights and Model Context Protocol (MCP) queries, delivering more intelligent, location-aware recommendations.

Prerequisites

Before you add devices, confirm you have:

  • BIG-IP credentials — Administrative username and password with appropriate access policies.
  • Network connectivity — HTTPS connectivity (port 443) between F5 Insight and your BIG-IP devices.
  • CA certificate (optional) — Certificate authority (CA) certificate if using custom TLS certificates on BIG-IP devices.

Access BIG-IP settings

To access the BIG-IP configuration interface:

  1. Go to the Manage section in the left toolbar.
  2. Select BIG-IP Settings.

Manage data centers

Data centers let you organize BIG-IP devices by location, environment, or any logical grouping that fits your infrastructure.

Create a data center

  1. Select the Data Centers tab.
  2. Click Add New Data Center.
  3. Enter a Data Center Name (for example, US-East-1, Production-DC, or Azure-Central).
  4. Click Add Data Center.

A default data center is provided for devices that do not require specific location grouping.

Add BIG-IP devices

Manual entry (option 1)

  1. Select the Devices tab.
  2. Click Add New Device.
  3. Select Manual Entry.
  4. Complete the required fields (see the table below).
  5. Click Validate and Add.

Device configuration fields:

Field Description Required
Endpoint BIG-IP hostname or IP address Yes
Username Administrative username Yes
Password Administrative password Yes
Certificate authority CA certificate for TLS validation (leave blank for self-signed certificates) No
Modules to monitor Select which BIG-IP modules to collect telemetry from Yes
Data center Assign device to a data center Yes

Note

Validation: F5 Insight automatically tests connectivity to your BIG-IP device before adding it. If validation fails, verify your network connectivity and credentials are correct.

Available modules

Select the modules that match your BIG-IP deployment and monitoring requirements:

  • Access Policy Manager (APM)
  • DNS (Global Traffic Manager)
  • Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM)
  • Policy API Protection
  • Policy AFM
  • Policy NAT
  • Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT)
  • Denial of Service (DoS) Protection
  • Policy Advanced WAF
  • Policy IP Intelligence
  • Profile DoS

Important

No modules are enabled by default. Select only the modules you need to optimize telemetry collection.

YAML import (option 2)

For bulk onboarding or infrastructure-as-code (IaC) workflows, import devices using YAML configuration. Using YAML streamlines bulk onboarding, ensures consistency, improves scalability, simplifies automation, and increases accuracy. It also enables integration with IaC workflows and CI/CD pipelines for reusable, version-controlled configurations.

To import devices through YAML:

  1. Select the Devices tab.
  2. Click Add New Device.
  3. Select Paste YAML.
  4. Paste your YAML configuration.
  5. Click Validate and Add.

Example YAML configuration

# F5 Insight configuration export
licensing:
  mode: connected
  devices:
    - hostname: bigip-prod-01.example.com
      username: admin
      password: your-password-here
      port: 443
      modules:
        - LTM (Local Traffic Manager)
        - DNS
features:
  high_availability:
    enabled: false
  llm_insights:
    enabled: false
  f5_aidf:
    enabled: false
data_retention:
  enabled: false

YAML import also supports configuring F5 Insight features such as high availability, LLM insights, F5 AI Data Fabric (AIDF), and data retention policies alongside device definitions.