Getting Started¶

Overview¶

This document details the lab exercises and steps that should be followed by the student to learn about BIG-IQ Access specific functions as they relate to managing BIG-IP Access Policy Manager.

The environment is setup with basic configuration and associated traffic generation to populate dashboards for these exercises. BIG-IQ could be managing BIG-IPs in Azure and Google Cloud, as well as on premises for example. This can be a powerful management tool for customers that are talking about multi-cloud management.

Introduction

This lab environment is designed to allow for quick and easy demonstration of a significant portion of the BIG-IQ product. The Linux box in the environment has multiple cron jobs that are generating traffic that populates the monitoring tab.

Device Information¶

Dependencies¶

• The BIG-IP device must be located in your network.
• The BIG-IP device must be running a compatible software version.
• Enable basic authentication on BIG-IQ using set-basic-auth on in the shell.

BIG-IP Versions AskF5 SOL with this info:

https://support.f5.com/kb/en-us/solutions/public/14000/500/sol14592.html

Note: Port 22 and 443 must be open to the BIG-IQ management address, or any alternative IP address used to add the BIG-IP device to the BIG-IQ inventory.

How to access the lab in the Ravello environment¶

Agility Lab specific instructions.

For indivual access take the following steps:

Ravello:

Once the Instructor has started your Lab environment you will be provided a URL/IP Address to access the environments Jump Host where you will perform all the Lab Tasks.

The BIG-IQ User Interface¶

In this section, we will go through the main features of the user interface. Feel free to log into the BIG-IQ device to explore some of these features in the lab.

After you log into BIG-IQ, you will notice:

1. A navigation tab model at the top of the screen to display each high level functional area.
2. A tree based menu on the left-hand side of the screen to display low-level functional area for each tab.
3. A large object browsing and editing area on the right-hand side of the screen.

• Let us look a little deeper at the different options available in bar at the top of the page.

• At the top, each tab describes a high-level functional area for BIG-IQ central management:
• Monitoring –Visibility in dashboard format to monitor performance and isolate fault area.
• Configuration – Provides configuration editors for each module area.
• Deployment – Provides operational functions around deployment for each module area.
• Devices – Lifecycle management around discovery, licensing and software install / upgrade.
• System – Management and monitoring of BIG-IQ functionality.
• Application – Visibility for all of the components of the application.
• Overview of left hand navigation for each top-level functional area.

Note:¶

This Course is not intended to train you on the general device management functions of BIG-IQ but rather to train you on the features available within the Access portion of BIG-IQ for managing BIG-IP Access Policy Manager module on multiple BIG-IPs throughout your organization. Therefore we will jump right into the BIG-IQ Access specific related workflows. Toward the end of the lab we will discuss what steps an Admin must take in order to discover and import a BIG-IP device running Access Policy Manager so that it can be managed by BIG-IQ.