Multi Datacenter Management

[Falk R.]

Hello
I work for company which running 300+ servers and we soon need to replace our hypervisors since they soon will reach EOL, it's KVM based hypervisor. What I want to know here is
Will Proxmox Datacenter Manager will allow us
Running servers in standalone mode in cluster without shared storage?
Live Migrate VMs between those standalone nodes (in same DC on private network)
If Live Migration not possible would it be available offline migration between standalone servers (I try this with scp disk and vm.xml file and start on other server, it works, but it's total manual operation.)
Provide unify management for all standalone severs
Provide API for using automation in provisioning and horizontal or vertical scaling for VMs
Provide auto rebalance based on VMs and server load (I found this feature on github but as i understand it need shared storage.)
Maybe some maintenance mode with random migration of VMs to other standalone servers.

I know I ask to much but what i read here this feature is really game changer and I would be appreciated if somebody could answer my questions.

With Regards

Hi,
it will be possible to manage standalone hypervisor hosts and clusters in a webgui.
Live migration between clusters and standalone hosts will also be implemented. Of course, I don't know whether this will be available from day 0. Live migration between different clusters or standalone hosts is already possible, but only via CLI.
You can already control everything via API, but only someone from the staff can answer whether the Datacenter Manager will bring an extension to the API.
Automatic load balancing in the cluster (not across clusters) is on the roadmap. So far, however, there is rebalancing when VMs are switched on.
There is already an automatic migration to other hosts in the CLuster when a host is put into maintenance mode or a host is simply restarted.
I also find it practical that exactly the VMs that were on the host before the reboot are automatically migrated to this host again after the reboot or leaving maintenance mode.

 

[frosty45]

@Falk R. Thank you very much for your answer. I will deploy proxmox 8 in 3 servers and start testing it features.

 

[gozieeric]

Hello
I work for company which running 300+ servers and we soon need to replace our hypervisors since they soon will reach EOL, it's KVM based hypervisor. What I want to know here is
Will Proxmox Datacenter Manager will allow us
Running servers in standalone mode in cluster without shared storage?
Live Migrate VMs between those standalone nodes (in same DC on private network)
If Live Migration not possible would it be available offline migration between standalone servers (I try this with scp disk and vm.xml file and start on other server, it works, but it's total manual operation.)
Provide unify management for all standalone severs
Provide API for using automation in provisioning and horizontal or vertical scaling for VMs
Provide auto rebalance based on VMs and server load (I found this feature on github but as i understand it need shared storage.)
Maybe some maintenance mode with random migration of VMs to other standalone servers.

I know I ask to much but what i read here this feature is really game changer and I would be appreciated if somebody could answer my questions.

With Regards

Hi,

I think the best ways to find out what you need is to setup a lab of 3 Nodes running proxmox.

I am doing just that.

Best regards!

 

[frosty45]

@Falk R.

Automatic load balancing in the cluster (not across clusters) is on the roadmap. So far, however, there is rebalancing when VMs are switched on.
There is already an automatic migration to other hosts in the CLuster when a host is put into maintenance mode or a host is simply restarted.
I also find it practical that exactly the VMs that were on the host before the reboot are automatically migrated to this host again after the reboot or leaving maintenance mode.

As I understand this features is only possible if cluster running shared storage or am I wrong ??

 

[Johannes S]

@Falk R.

Automatic load balancing in the cluster (not across clusters) is on the roadmap. So far, however, there is rebalancing when VMs are switched on.
There is already an automatic migration to other hosts in the CLuster when a host is put into maintenance mode or a host is simply restarted.
I also find it practical that exactly the VMs that were on the host before the reboot are automatically migrated to this host again after the reboot or leaving maintenance mode.

As I understand this features is only possible if cluster running shared storage or am I wrong ??

Shared storage or storage replication via ZFS (so you need ZFS on the storage on all nodes):
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Storage_Replication
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/High_Availability

One caveat though (quoted from the wiki page on storage replication):

High-Availability is allowed in combination with storage replication, but there may be some data loss between the last synced time and the time a node failed.

The default replication schedule is 15 minutes, which can be reduced to one minute and extended up to several hours or even more time. So in case of a failure you would loose the data of one minute/15 minutes/whatever you configured for the replication job. Depending on your usecase this might be fine or not.

Obviouvsly storage replication doesn't scale well with larger clusters (more than a few nodes), but in that case you are better off with Ceph or a shared storage anyway.

For a small cluster of two nodes+qdevice or three nodes without Ceph it's great.

 

[frosty45]

@Johannes S Thank you for answer.

 

[4f1sh3r]

First alpha version of „Proxmox Datacenter Manager“ has been released and can be found here: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/proxmox-datacenter-manager-first-alpha-release.159323/