What are the recommended methods for forcing a BIG-IP system to standby mode?

BIG-IP provides two supported and documented methods to manually force a device into standby state in a high-availability (HA) configuration:

CLI method (A):

tmsh run /sys failover device standby

This is the correct and supported TMSH command to force the local device to transition from active to standby.

Configuration Utility method (B):Navigating to Device Management > Devices > Local Device (Self) and selecting Force to Standby performs the same operation through the GUI and is fully supported.

Why the other options are incorrect:

C is incorrect: Traffic Groups do not provide a “Force to Standby” option for the local device; traffic groups are used to manage which device owns specific traffic, not to force device-level failover.

D is incorrect: tmsh run /sys failover standby is not a valid TMSH command. The correct syntax requires device standby.

Thus, the correct answers are A and B.