Add F5 load balancers

Add F5 Big IP load balancers to SolarWinds Observability.

Requirements

• Network Collector 2024.2 or later

Add F5 load balancers

1. In SolarWinds Observability SaaS, click Add Data at the top.

2. In the Add Data dialog, click the Network tab and click F5 Load Balancers.

3. Select an existing network collector or deploy a new one.

4. On F5 Polling Settings, enter the hostname or IP address of the device.

5. Provide F5 REST API Credentials and click Next to continue. Before you can continue, the SSL certificate is checked. If validating the SSL certificate fails, you will be informed about it.

   • To use new credentials, specify the display name, username, and password. The display name helps identify the credentials set for reuse.

   • To use existing credentials, select Existing, and choose a credentials set from the drop-down list.

   • Review the default port for running F5 REST API. By default, 443 is used. If appropriate, change the port.

   • By default, F5 REST API uses HTTPS. If using HTTPS is not possible, you can clear the Use HTTPS box.

6. On Define Node, specify the network device you want to monitor in SolarWinds Observability SaaS and click Next.

   1. Review the hostname or IP address. The value is taken over from the previous step.

   2. If the device has a dynamic IP address, select Dynamic IP Address. This option requires a complete IP-hostname pair for successful lookup.

      Optional settings

      • To identify the device in SolarWinds Observability SaaS, specify a display name.
      • To add a custom tag to the device, click Add Tag and specify the key and the value for the tag. You can also add tags to the device later on the device details page under the Overview tab.

   3. Select how you want to poll the network device.

      • Select ICMP to monitor the device health by comparing the polled results to predefined threshold values. ICMP pools device status, average response time, or packet loss percentage.

      • Select SNMPv2 to get more details by querying the management information base and performance indicators tied to specific object identifiers.

        Specify the SNMP version, port, and specify SNMP credentials for polling. Clicking Next tests the credentials.

        • To use existing credentials, select Existing and then select a credentials set from the list.

          

        • To use new credentials, select New and provide the display name and community string.

          

7. On Choose Resources, select metrics and resources to be monitored on the devices and click Next. For example, you can monitor status and response time, topology, and selected interfaces.

8. On Summary, review the information and click Submit.

   The F5 load balancer is added for monitoring.