Promox VE Remote workstation server

[formal]

Hello all, I am researching hosting multiple CAD workstations from our heavily specced main server at our office, it holds 7x 2080Ti GPU's (water cooled) and a 64core CPU with 512GB of ram, alongside a very fast SSD raid 6 (20TB)

This is usually a rendering node for our team but alais are all now working remotely on laptops and having to vpn into the server to utilise its GPU power.

It dawned upon me that maybe we could run Proxmox as the main OS and host Win10 VM's with GPU passthrough so each one of us (5 users in total) could all have a powerful workstation to run remotely through our remote laptops.

so my questions -

A. Is this feasible, we have a very fast fibre internet connection into the office and each user has a pretty good home connection
B. We need a simple way for each user to be able to login to their VM, would this be as simple as RCP or do we need something like Teradici
C. We need it to be lag free and ideally colour accurate, hence the mention of Teradici above
D. Can Proxmox run on a dual boot system so we can keep the main windows bare metal install
E. Does anyone know if you can run 7x GPU via PCIe passthrough into a single VM

Any help would really be much appreciated

 

[Stefan_R]

A. Is this feasible, we have a very fast fibre internet connection into the office and each user has a pretty good home connection

Don't see a reason why not, if your hardware supports PCIe passthrogh properly. Though seeing your specs, I'd be worried if it didn't - then again, with passthrough you never know, so I don't think you could get around testing.

B. We need a simple way for each user to be able to login to their VM, would this be as simple as RCP or do we need something like Teradici
C. We need it to be lag free and ideally colour accurate, hence the mention of Teradici above

I'm not a heavy Windows user, so I'm not sure how accounting and login work via remote sessions, but just in general, RDP should work, though of course with it's own limitations. Never heard of Teradici, but from personal experience, maybe also consider options like Moonlight or Parsec - anything made for "Gaming" is usually also not a bad option for CAD/design work.

D. Can Proxmox run on a dual boot system so we can keep the main windows bare metal install

Yes, the boot config is pretty much regular debian (GRUB or systemd-boot), so a dual-boot is possible. With UEFI it's even easier, since you can dual-boot straight from the BIOS.

E. Does anyone know if you can run 7x GPU via PCIe passthrough into a single VM

Our internal limit is 16 devices per VM, so theoretically - yes. Practically - never tried it, 7 fully-fledged 2080Ti's is quite a lot

 

[formal]

Don't see a reason why not, if your hardware supports PCIe passthrogh properly. Though seeing your specs, I'd be worried if it didn't - then again, with passthrough you never know, so I don't think you could get around testing.


I'm not a heavy Windows user, so I'm not sure how accounting and login work via remote sessions, but just in general, RDP should work, though of course with it's own limitations. Never heard of Teradici, but from personal experience, maybe also consider options like Moonlight or Parsec - anything made for "Gaming" is usually also not a bad option for CAD/design work.


Yes, the boot config is pretty much regular debian (GRUB or systemd-boot), so a dual-boot is possible. With UEFI it's even easier, since you can dual-boot straight from the BIOS.


Our internal limit is 16 devices per VM, so theoretically - yes. Practically - never tried it, 7 fully-fledged 2080Ti's is quite a lot

Many thanks for the details, am I able to try all of this before purchasing a license to ensure it works?

 

[Dunuin]

Many thanks for the details, am I able to try all of this before purchasing a license to ensure it works?

You can do everything without a license if you just want to test it first. Features aren't limited except for access to the better tested enterprise repository and enhanced support.

 

[formal]

Another question, can each VM be turned on remotely from each client?

 

[Dunuin]

Another question, can each VM be turned on remotely from each client?

You can turn on any VM from the Webinterface. Its also possible to write your own scripts to turn on VMs because there is a API. You could create a own user for every VM and give that user only the rights to turn on that specific VM.

 

[formal]

I'm relighting this old thread! I never went ahead but have decided now is the time, keen to hear any updated (4 years of updates..) on this config.

1. 12 x Nvidia GPU into a single motherboard with 256 Epyc cores and 2TB ram
2. Promox to create 6 x remote access Windows 11 VM with 2 x GPU each (cpu and ram split between)
3. Remote power up/down/reset of each VM workstation

Any updates to Proxmox since 2020 that make this better etc? Keen to get this built asap. Thanks in advance for any tips/pointers