Proxmox

The_Librarian

The_Librarian

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So, after Broadcom acquired VMWare, and is now actively targeting VMWare customers, who've made the switch over to Proxmox?

I'm currently playing around with Proxmox and replication, want to see how that will work out as a solution.

I've found that you need to install with ZFS before you can run replication, as replication on Proxmox requires the ZFS file system.

So far I'm really impressed. The last time I had a look at Proxmox was pre-2012.

By now it is much more mature as a product.

What are your thoughts on it?
 
The_Librarian said:
So, after Broadcom acquired VMWare, and is now actively targeting VMWare customers, who've made the switch over to Proxmox?

I'm currently playing around with Proxmox and replication, want to see how that will work out as a solution.

I've found that you need to install with ZFS before you can run replication, as replication on Proxmox requires the ZFS file system.

So far I'm really impressed. The last time I had a look at Proxmox was pre-2012.

By now it is much more mature as a product.

What are your thoughts on it?
Click to expand...

We have been using proxmox in Production for the past 4 years. I think its a mature product and once you can get your head around some quirks then its a very powerful platform.
The Broadcom deal made a few IT and MSP companies rethink their dependency on VMware, now with them choosing to end perpetual licences its more of a money grab than anything useful.

Don't have too much experience with XCP-NG however I understand that is based on the Xen fork from the Citrix.. I think it comes down to Xen vs KVM then and which you think has better hardware support and stability.
Both hypervisors support network storage over NFS and iSCSI among other "production" features requirements.
 
I’ve been using Proxmox in my home lab for the past few years and it’s been fine - no major issues that I’ve found aside from a few quirks here and there
 
PhireSide said:
I’ve been using Proxmox in my home lab for the past few years and it’s been fine - no major issues that I’ve found aside from a few quirks here and there
Click to expand...
Same - actually have 2 nodes running. Funds willing i will restructure and reconfigure this in 2024 to have a 3-node HA setup running on low power mini PCs - i don't have massively resource intensive VMs / loads
 
The_Librarian said:
So, after Broadcom acquired VMWare, and is now actively targeting VMWare customers, who've made the switch over to Proxmox?

I'm currently playing around with Proxmox and replication, want to see how that will work out as a solution.

I've found that you need to install with ZFS before you can run replication, as replication on Proxmox requires the ZFS file system.

So far I'm really impressed. The last time I had a look at Proxmox was pre-2012.

By now it is much more mature as a product.

What are your thoughts on it?
Click to expand...
I like it, it works well.

Their backup solution is a bit iffy though. The Proxmox backup server uses some weird binary map for storing data. So it stores millions of little 0-2MB files. So it pulls down data fast. Try to restore it and on a 500MB line it pulls 1KB per second. Upon investigation its because not only are these millions of millions of little files but they're all over the place. So you need very very fast random reads on your disks. Perhaps an array of striped disks could help.

Other than that, the main Proxmox system works well and i like it. Haven't had major issues with it.
 
neoprema said:
I like it, it works well.

Their backup solution is a bit iffy though. The Proxmox backup server uses some weird binary map for storing data. So it stores millions of little 0-2MB files. So it pulls down data fast. Try to restore it and on a 500MB line it pulls 1KB per second. Upon investigation its because not only are these millions of millions of little files but they're all over the place. So you need very very fast random reads on your disks. Perhaps an array of striped disks could help.

Other than that, the main Proxmox system works well and i like it. Haven't had major issues with it.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this.

I got a 3-node replication setup going, for initial test purposes. Looks good so far.

The 3rd node is to act as a quorum, and to help migrate VM's from one node to the other.

Wanted to do the backup server too, but if @neoprema says that happens, then we will look at just installing veeam backup agents on the VM's and have these backup to a standalone NAS with enough storage.

So, will do the backup server, and if its performance is ass, then I'll just drop it. Don't want to waste time in restoring/recovering.
 
The_Librarian said:
Thanks for this.

I got a 3-node replication setup going, for initial test purposes. Looks good so far.

The 3rd node is to act as a quorum, and to help migrate VM's from one node to the other.

Wanted to do the backup server too, but if @neoprema says that happens, then we will look at just installing veeam backup agents on the VM's and have these backup to a standalone NAS with enough storage.

So, will do the backup server, and if its performance is ass, then I'll just drop it. Don't want to waste time in restoring/recovering.
Click to expand...
Cool.

I think if we you can give it fast CPU (its calculating all those bytes it needs to go after and which files) and very fast disks you should be fine. As the data is spread out amongst all the millions of files, its very read and processor heavy. But with a single SSD a restore was deathly. Took me 5 days for a 350GB machine as it spent most of its time looking for data on the disk.
 
Well <doh>

The one NIC on the one workstation just failed for some reason :/

Now I cannot access the one node at all.

And there's a problem - replication was successful, but now I cannot access the replicated VM's... (this is just a replication setup without any HA).

Goes to show that you really need to test out stuff before deploying or even recommending it...


(trying the old trick of leaving it unplugged for a while, then starting it up again)...
 
Last edited:
Mzezman said:
Same - actually have 2 nodes running. Funds willing i will restructure and reconfigure this in 2024 to have a 3-node HA setup running on low power mini PCs - i don't have massively resource intensive VMs / loads
Click to expand...
I feel like Proxmox and Intel NUCs are a match made in heaven
 
I'd also consider oVirt (RHEV or is it RHV was based on it).

You could also always consider OKD and KubeVirt for VM's - this way you get a nice GUI + containers + full k8s functionality and VMs on one platform.
 
I found PBS (proxmox backup server) not to be very useful.
I just have a schedule backup task straight from the hypervisor.
 
The_Librarian said:
So, after Broadcom acquired VMWare, and is now actively targeting VMWare customers, who've made the switch over to Proxmox?

I'm currently playing around with Proxmox and replication, want to see how that will work out as a solution.

I've found that you need to install with ZFS before you can run replication, as replication on Proxmox requires the ZFS file system.

So far I'm really impressed. The last time I had a look at Proxmox was pre-2012.

By now it is much more mature as a product.

What are your thoughts on it?
Click to expand...
I love using proxmox, still learning ,got me 8 vm's running on it.
 
Proxmox have announced the release of their VMware migration tool

forum.proxmox.com

New Import Wizard Available for Migrating VMware ESXi Based Virtual Machines

We are proud to announce the first release of our new integrated import wizard! Proxmox VE now provides an integrated VM import wizard re-using the storage plugin system for native integration into the API and web-based user interface. You can use this to import VMware ESXi VMs as a whole, with...
forum.proxmox.com forum.proxmox.com
 
Jade @ Absolute Hosting said:
Proxmox have announced the release of their VMware migration tool

forum.proxmox.com

New Import Wizard Available for Migrating VMware ESXi Based Virtual Machines

We are proud to announce the first release of our new integrated import wizard! Proxmox VE now provides an integrated VM import wizard re-using the storage plugin system for native integration into the API and web-based user interface. You can use this to import VMware ESXi VMs as a whole, with...
forum.proxmox.com forum.proxmox.com
Click to expand...
Proxmox has an awesome opportunity here - hope they strategise and get it right. It's an awesome product
 
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