VMware Vsphere (ESXi) or Proxmox VE?

DrJohnZoidberg

DrJohnZoidberg

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I need a good virtualisation environment. I played around with Proxmox VE last night and it's pretty nice, the only issue I had was trying to get the Java console to work on a mac. Proxmox does require a subscription service if you want to use the stable repos, but it's not very much.

Anybody here used both and what are your thoughts? Pros and cons?

TIA
 
I don't know Proxmox at all but would say VMWare purely because of the amount of info available on VMWARE
 
What are you looking to virtualize?

I'd stick with the big boys, VMware and MS Hyper-V much easier to find support and answers to issues
 
I want to virtualise a Windows Server 2008 install and Centos.

Proxmox is based on KVM so it is supported widely. I was interested in Proxmox because it has integrated backups and I don't need to use any third party tools.
 
I'd say VMWare purely from a support point of view. For backups I use BazaarVCB - it couldn't be easier a one liner in the crontab with my backup flags.

PROXMOX - I've never used so I can't comment but it certainly is interesting and I may consider playing with it!
 
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DrJohnZoidberg said:
I want to virtualise a Windows Server 2008 install and Centos.

Proxmox is based on KVM so it is supported widely. I was interested in Proxmox because it has integrated backups and I don't need to use any third party tools.
Click to expand...

True, although I have never used Proxmox, their community supports it thoroughly with one reason being the integrated backup service.

In my experience depending on the environment, ESXi and Nakivo is an option.
 
Switch to Proxmox last year (no subscription required, that's for support much like VMWare) from VMWare ESXi and I'm much happier for it.

VMWare's biggest issue for me was that the management tools were all Windows only, while I work on a Mac and various Linux machines and can now use any web browser from anywhere to manage my stuff.

Haven't quite setup the High Availability replication because I don't have two identical servers so instead I'm just using Rsync between nodes on a nightly basis so that if the **** hits the fan I can at least fire up my VM's on either of the other nodes or even both to split the load if required.

I actually found VMWare impossible to get information on. The ultimate solution always being "more money...new version" for just about every issue.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
I want to virtualise a Windows Server 2008 install and Centos.

Proxmox is based on KVM so it is supported widely. I was interested in Proxmox because it has integrated backups and I don't need to use any third party tools.
Click to expand...

Yeah with VMWare I needed to spend even more money to introduce Veeam backups. Then figured I would use the same to backup via SSH on Proxmox as a secondary only to find out need to buy yet another different version.

Linux VM's run as is on Proxmox and Windows stuff just needs you to install the necessary drivers for Network/HDD etc.

Proxmox as an all-in-one solution is superb, also incredibly easy to upgrade.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Switch to Proxmox last year (no subscription required, that's for support much like VMWare) from VMWare ESXi and I'm much happier for it.

VMWare's biggest issue for me was that the management tools were all Windows only, while I work on a Mac and various Linux machines and can now use any web browser from anywhere to manage my stuff.

Haven't quite setup the High Availability replication because I don't have two identical servers so instead I'm just using Rsync between nodes on a nightly basis so that if the **** hits the fan I can at least fire up my VM's on either of the other nodes or even both to split the load if required.

I actually found VMWare impossible to get information on. The ultimate solution always being "more money...new version" for just about every issue.
Click to expand...

Thanks, finally somebody that's uses it :D

The high availability is something I really want, so I'll look into that. The issue with the free version though is that you don't have access to the stable repository only the test one (which is not great for production use). I'll see how it goes.

Do you have any tips on how to get the console to work on OS X? Can't get it to work in Chrome or Firefox and when I do it in Safari it blocks me with an untrusted certificate error.
 
SauRoNZA said:
VMWare's biggest issue for me was that the management tools were all Windows only, while I work on a Mac and various Linux machines and can now use any web browser from anywhere to manage my stuff.
Click to expand...

Not so, VMware has had a webclient component for a while now and you will see with vSphere 5.5 that the Windows client is on the way out. Many of the new 5.5 features can only be activated in the web client.
 
morkhans said:
Not so, VMware has had a webclient component for a while now and you will see with vSphere 5.5 that the Windows client is on the way out. Many of the new 5.5 features can only be activated in the web client.
Click to expand...

Looks like I'm going to go Proxmox route anyway, ESXi doesn't want to install on my test machine as I don't have a supported NIC.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Thanks, finally somebody that's uses it :D

The high availability is something I really want, so I'll look into that. The issue with the free version though is that you don't have access to the stable repository only the test one (which is not great for production use). I'll see how it goes.

Do you have any tips on how to get the console to work on OS X? Can't get it to work in Chrome or Firefox and when I do it in Safari it blocks me with an untrusted certificate error.
Click to expand...

Maybe they changed the policy but I'm currently on 3.1-21 not having checked for upgrades in a while that was the last version I upgraded to and I have no subscription in place.

High Availability uses BTRFS as I recall and requires identical volumes for each and every node which I don't have access to at this point in time. I can afford not to have HA clusters as my realtime data is stored offsite anyway so I can just replicate from there if I have to.

I use Safari and don't have any issues connecting to the Web Interface, but I do have to click yes yes or continue or whatever to avoid the warnings.

morkhans said:
Not so, VMware has had a webclient component for a while now and you will see with vSphere 5.5 that the Windows client is on the way out. Many of the new 5.5 features can only be activated in the web client.
Click to expand...

Granted I'm talking ESXi/ESX 4.0 here. Whichever was the free version doesn't support the web interface only the paid for one does.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Granted I'm talking ESXi/ESX 4.0 here. Whichever was the free version doesn't support the web interface only the paid for one does.
Click to expand...

Yes, webclient comes as part of the suite, so paid for. vSphere Essentials and Essentials Plus is a pretty cost effective way of buying VMware if you have 3 or less hosts.
 
On the topic of Enterprise Repository (having just checked the website) this being a VM Cluster unless you have the HA sorted and can Live Migrate VM's between nodes you won't be upgrading all that often so the Enterprise Repository is hardly a concern in my opinion. Install the version from the ISO and stick to that until there's another major version release and do a planned upgrade once a year or so.

I only upgraded mine with the 3.1 rollout so I had an understanding of how things work when I do need to do it. There was nothing wrong with the version I was running before and therefore no need to upgrade. Same thing really applied to my ESX4 system which I never needed to upgrade either, only made the switch to Proxmox when building new hardware and needing to implement a change anyway.
 
morkhans said:
Yes, webclient comes as part of the suite, so paid for. vSphere Essentials and Essentials Plus is a pretty cost effective way of buying VMware if you have 3 or less hosts.
Click to expand...

Yeah I do believe it was the Essentials (one of them) license that we purchased originally, but I recall hitting the processor limit from what I remember so when we implemented the new hardware decided to opt for the free Proxmox solution (considering we run mostly Linux VM's anyway) instead of paying more money for licenses.

Converting our VMWare VM's to Proxmox was also a very painless and simple enough process if you are comfortable with the Linux command line.

Free is always good in our business model, less money I spend on operational costs the more money in my pocket when bonus time comes around.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Looks like I'm going to go Proxmox route anyway, ESXi doesn't want to install on my test machine as I don't have a supported NIC.
Click to expand...

It was one of the deciders for me as well, the fancy paid for VMWare solution had a problem with the RAID card in one of the older nodes we meant to introduce into the cluster and the ultimate solution was buying a newer one.

Instead I just dropped the software all together and carried on with Proxmox. Had to manually install RAID monitoring and SMART status stuff, but then that's hardly a drama.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Yup.

Try throwing some older SuperMicro hardware at it.

Nightmare.
Click to expand...

What is pretty cool though with some of the new Dells you can get ESXi pre-installed on RAID1 SD cards.

I see the Proxmox support options can get quite expensive once you go beyond the Community support. You using and supporting it for clients or just in-house?
 
Just in house.

Running 12 or so live systems and a few more test environments. Mostly Linux machines with two Windows servers for Pastel etc.

ESXi pre-installed on a RAID card is pretty cool though.

*****

Our more serious live data is hosted in the Netherlands on a massive VMWare cluster though but I only remotely connect to those and don't get actively involved on the physical side of things.
 
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