Announcing BIG-IQ 7.0: A Big Step Forward for Management and Visibility of Your Most Valuable Asset

We talk a lot about the value of your apps. And make no mistake, they are valuable. In fact, some companies’ application portfolio can be worth billions of dollars. Because every company is now a software company—yes, every company—and with hundreds of applications deployed, that value is constantly growing. Visibility and manageability of all of these apps (and the BIG-IP services that support them) is no small feat.

In short, as modern business growth continues to foster digital transformation, many organizations often deploy more applications than they can adequately keep track of.

Adding to the challenge are the deployment environments that organizations are leveraging. According to the 2019 State of Application Service Report, 87% of respondents have multi-cloud architectures (2.5 on average), driven by an app-first methodology.

While this application overload can feel like a puzzle without a solution, there is a remedy: Simplifying and centralizing the management of F5 BIG-IP devices and application services using BIG-IQ. The latest release of BIG-IQ—7.0—is a significant leap forward and can help NetOps, SecOps, DevOps, and application owners build, deploy, and manage apps, devices, and services more intelligently.

Simplify Device and Application Services Management

One of the core benefits of BIG-IQ is its ability to holistically manage BIG-IP (virtual and physical devices) at scale. We’ve taken that manageability to the next level with BIG-IQ 7.0. Users can now:

• Create BIG-IP virtual editions (VEs) via BIG-IQ across on-prem and cloud environments
• Automate the provisioning of BIG-IP virtual appliances with Declarative Onboarding—part of the F5 Automation Toolchain
• Leverage tight integration with Venafi, enabling management of SSL traffic certificates and keys for BIG-IP devices directly from BIG-IQ
• Gain a unified look into apps and services deployed over multiple environments including all DNS and HTTP instances of an app deployment

Increase Security with Deeper Visibility

A big push for BIG-IQ 7.0 was more investment into the management of F5 application security solutions—specifically the SSL Orchestrator module. The bulk of global internet traffic—over 80%—is   encrypted, which keeps your private data safe. However, because of this encryption, proactive and preventative visibility into what that traffic potentially contains (read: malicious payloads and attack vectors) is a real challenge. The SSL Orchestrator management dashboard in BIG-IQ 7.0 simplifies the management of encrypted traffic with a robust dashboard capable of managing many SSL Orchestrator deployments.  

In addition to the dedicated SSL Orchestrator dashboard, BIG-IQ 7.0 also supports other security specific features including:

• Unified bot detection and management to gain visibility and insights on all bot traffic trying to access your apps
• L7 security dashboard for managing Advanced WAF instances

Foster Greater Productivity

As organizations continue to align to digital transformation initiatives, automation and APIs remain key enablers. In the same vein, consistency and standardization are paramount to infusing automation into workflows. Enter Application Services 3 Extension—or AS3. AS3 app services templates leverage a declarative model of configuring BIG-IP app services, meaning you only need to tell it the “what” or the end state, rather than the “how” which requires working with many APIs. This approach accelerates deployments, ensures consistency, and increases application deployment flexibility. And with the 7.0 release of BIG-IQ, you can now leverage a dedicated GUI for working with AS3 templates.

Alternatively, your dev teams retain the option to work with AS3 templates via the robust API that they know and love. This gives you the opportunity to drive greater team productivity that can accelerate the deployment of app services through automation and centralized management—helping you realize faster time-to-market.

If your organization is looking for ways to optimize management of your BIG-IP devices across multiple environments, while simplifying app management and increasing agility and flexibility, BIG-IQ 7.0 is your solution.

For more information, visit: https://www.f5.com/bigiq