BIG-IP device and data center management

Overview

The F5 Instances 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 F5 Instances.

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. Select Add New Data Center.
  3. Enter a Data Center Name (for example, US-East-1, Production-DC, or Azure-Central).
  4. Select 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. Select Add Device.
  3. Select BIG-IP from the device type dropdown.
  4. Select the Single Device tab.
  5. Complete the required fields (see the table below).
  6. Select Add Device.

Device configuration fields:

Field Description Required
Endpoint BIG-IP hostname or IP address Yes
Username Administrative username Yes
Password Administrative password Yes
Collection Interval (in seconds) Time between metric collection runs (60 seconds is the default) Yes
Certificate Authority CA certificate for TLS validation (leave blank for self-signed certificates) No
Data Center Name Assign device to a data center, or create a new data center Yes
Modules to monitor Select which BIG-IP modules to collect telemetry from 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

Note

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. Select Add Device.
  3. Select BIG-IP from the device type dropdown.
  4. Select the Upload YAML Files tab.
  5. Upload YAML files.
  6. Add a defaults.yaml file and a receivers.yaml file. The defaults file acts as a template that applies missing configuration values to receivers.yaml.

Sample defaults.yaml file

# These configs are applied to each entry in the bigip_receivers file
# where they don't contain an equivalent / overriding entry.
bigip_receiver_defaults:
  # The time to wait between metric collection runs
  collection_interval: 60s
  # The username to login to the device with
  username: admin
  data_types:
    f5.apm:
      enabled: false
    f5.cgnat:
      enabled: false
    f5.dns:
      enabled: false
    f5.dos:
      enabled: false
    f5.firewall:
      enabled: false
    f5.gtm:
      enabled: false
    f5.policy.api_protection:
      enabled: false
    f5.policy.asm:
      enabled: false
    f5.policy.firewall:
      enabled: false
    f5.policy.ip_intelligence:
      enabled: false
    f5.policy.nat:
      enabled: false
    f5.profile.dos:
      enabled: false
  # The TLS settings to use. Either a CA file must be specified or insecure_skip_verify
  # set to true (not recommended).
  tls:
    insecure_skip_verify: true
    ca_file_content: |

      -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      MIIDwTCCAqmgAwIBAgIEHuykDjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADCBkTELMAkGA1UEBhMC
      ...
      y7NSGdY=
      -----END CERTIFICATE-----

# Set to true to enable periodic metric export to F5 DataFabric.
# Requires adding your Sensor ID and secret token to the container environment
# (see .env-example).
# Contact your F5 sales representative to obtain the ID and secret token.
f5_data_export: false


# Most people should not need to modify settings below this line


# The default local pipeline to use if one isn't specified in the per-device configs.
pipeline_default: metrics/local
# The default pipeline to use if metric export to F5 is enabled
# (if f5_data_export.sensor_id field above is set).
f5_pipeline_default: metrics/f5-datafabric

pipelines:

  # These pipeline configs are written to the OTel config after having the configured
  # receivers added to the dictionary in accordance with the "pipeline_default" field
  # above and "pipeline" field on the per-receiver config file. OTel Collector
  # documentation explains the syntax in more detail.
  metrics/local:
    #receivers list are generated via the config helper script
    processors: [batch/local]
    exporters: [otlphttp/metrics-local, debug/bigip]

  # These pipeline configs are written to the OTel config after having the configured
  # receivers added to the dictionary in accordance with the "f5_pipeline_default"
  # field above and "f5_pipeline" field on the per-receiver config file. OTel Collector
  # documentation explains the syntax in more detail.
  metrics/f5-datafabric:
    #receivers list are generated via the config helper script
    processors: [interval/f5-datafabric, attributes/f5-datafabric, batch/f5-datafabric]
    exporters: [otlp/f5-datafabric, debug/bigip]

Sample receivers.yaml file

bigip/2:
  endpoint: https://bigip1.f5net.com:443
  username: admin
  password: f5site02
  collection_interval: 30s
  tls:
    insecure_skip_verify: false
    ca_file_content: |

      -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      MIIDwTCCAqmgAwIBAgIEHuykDjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADCBkTELMAkGA1UEBhMC
      ...
      y7NSGdY=
      -----END CERTIFICATE-----
  data_types:
    f5.apm:
      enabled: true
    f5.cgnat:
      enabled: true
    f5.dns:
      enabled: true
    f5.dos:
      enabled: true
    f5.firewall:
      enabled: true
    f5.gtm:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.api_protection:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.asm:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.firewall:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.ip_intelligence:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.nat:
      enabled: true
    f5.profile.dos:
      enabled: true

bigip/1:
  endpoint: https://10.145.18.66:9001
  username: admin
  password: default
  collection_interval: 30s
  tls:
    insecure_skip_verify: true
  data_types:
    f5.apm:
      enabled: true
    f5.cgnat:
      enabled: true
    f5.dns:
      enabled: true
    f5.dos:
      enabled: true
    f5.firewall:
      enabled: true
    f5.gtm:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.api_protection:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.asm:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.firewall:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.ip_intelligence:
      enabled: true
    f5.policy.nat:
      enabled: true
    f5.profile.dos:
      enabled: true

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.