Proxmox newbie, long-time Linux user.

[ravenpi]

Hey, all. Senior OpenStack/Linux admin here. What with the "fun" in VMWare-land, my company is considering VMWare alternatives, and Proxmox leapt to mind as something I've seen highly recommended by people I trust, but is also something I've never used. So I have a few questions:
* Is it a reasonable replacement for VMWare? Mostly Windows clients, some Linux.

My company is also considering upgrading our aging OpenStack platform. Right now, a newer version of OpenStack is likely our target, but it _seems_ like Proxmox actually addresses most of our needs, however -- in chatting with ChatGPT -- it looks like two key things are missing, and I'm wondering if anyone has any insights:
* Dynamic DNS; are there any tie-ins? How do people handle that?
* Automated scheduling of VMs across compute nodes; is this able to be accomplished? Or should I be sticking with OpenStack?

Thanks for any insights, and apologies for newbie questions!

-Ken

 

[MagicFab]

Hey, all. Senior OpenStack/Linux admin here. What with the "fun" in VMWare-land, my company is considering VMWare alternatives, and Proxmox leapt to mind as something I've seen highly recommended by people I trust, but is also something I've never used.

Welcome to the Proxmox forums !

So I have a few questions:
* Is it a reasonable replacement for VMWare? Mostly Windows clients, some Linux.

Only one way to find out - try it. The beauty is you can start with off-the-shelf, used equipment and build a small lab, test a few workload there, and work your way up to new storage/equipment/HA.

My company is also considering upgrading our aging OpenStack platform. Right now, a newer version of OpenStack is likely our target, but it _seems_ like Proxmox actually addresses most of our needs, however -- in chatting with ChatGPT -- it looks like two key things are missing, and I'm wondering if anyone has any insights:
* Dynamic DNS; are there any tie-ins? How do people handle that?

What do you mean DynamicDNS ? Will your Proxmox web admin be Internet-facing ? Do you mean to resolve a domain name to a dynamic IP ? Proxmox runs on Debian and there are several packages you can use to set and update DNS entries.

* Automated scheduling of VMs across compute nodes; is this able to be accomplished? Or should I be sticking with OpenStack?

Proxmox offers HA management, which ensures that VMs are automatically moved or restarted on healthy nodes in case of failures. Automatic live migration is also possible depending on storage. Is this your use case in OpenStack ?

Thanks for any insights, and apologies for newbie questions!

-Ken

Good luck with your research and tests, hopefully Proxmox VE becomes your solution and you can come back and learn & share more here.

 

[alexskysilk]

Is it a reasonable replacement for VMWare? Mostly Windows clients, some Linux.

It could be, especially if is a vanilla esxi play. You would need to evaluate your usecase in its totality (distributed switches, storage technology, vrops, DRS, etc) PVE's scope is quite a subset of the entirety of the Vsphere stack.

Dynamic DNS; are there any tie-ins? How do people handle that?

You'd need to be more specific. in what context?

Automated scheduling of VMs across compute nodes; is this able to be accomplished? Or should I be sticking with OpenStack?

I guess the question is why? but accomplishing this is trivial for any linux admin (simple cron job would do.)

 

[bbgeek17]

Hi @ravenpi ,

OpenStack as a whole is a much larger and more complex product than Proxmox. Think of OpenStack as encompassing the functionality of Proxmox VE plus additional components. PVE is roughly equivalent to Nova, Neutron, and Horizon.

There is no direct equivalent to OpenStack Designate (DNS) in Proxmox. That said, similar functionality could theoretically be implemented via your DHCP server; for example, dnsmasq has built-in support for dynamic DNS integration.

You are also correct that Proxmox does not include a built-in scheduler like Nova Scheduler to handle VM placement decisions based on CPU, storage, or other resource constraints. There are some third-party tools that attempt to fill that gap - Multiportal is one such example.

There’s no question that OpenStack is a broader project. However, it is also arguably more complex to deploy, manage, and troubleshoot. As others have noted, the best approach is to try Proxmox VE for yourself. Create a list of your "must-have" features and evaluate whether they can be met with Proxmox.

Good luck!

---

Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

 

[bbgeek17]

Additionally, you may want to take a look at https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Roadmap#Roadmap
In particular, VM scheduling is tracked here: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Roadmap#Roadmap:~:text=Cluster Resource Scheduling Improvements

The DNS may be addressed by : https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pvesdn.html#pvesdn_config_dns

---

Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

 

[ravenpi]

Additionally, you may want to take a look at https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Roadmap#Roadmap
In particular, VM scheduling is tracked here: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Roadmap#Roadmap:~:text=Cluster Resource Scheduling Improvements

The DNS may be addressed by : https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pvesdn.html#pvesdn_config_dns

---

Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

WOW. Thanks for your fantastic replies! I'll be honest: while we definitely _use_ OpenStack, we don't _USE_ OpenStack, if you get me. There's a lot of functionality that (say) a telecom company makes use of that we simply don't. Because of how OpenStack's DHCP works, I hadn't even thought of trying to make that work with dDNS, but that's a fantastic idea. I'll absolutely look into the other links you supplied. To be clear: I _will_ be kicking the tires on Proxmox for our friends trying to replace VMWare, but I wanted to be sure nobody was like, "Boy, that's a dumb idea because $REASON." The real question in my mind was, "Can I save having to do a full-on OpenStack deploy across multiple environments, etc., etc." And the answer to that appears to be "Maybe." I'll definitely play with it.

Much obliged!

 

[MagicFab]

WOW. Thanks for your fantastic replies! I'll be honest: while we definitely _use_ OpenStack, we don't _USE_ OpenStack, if you get me. There's a lot of functionality that (say) a telecom company makes use of that we simply don't. Because of how OpenStack's DHCP works, I hadn't even thought of trying to make that work with dDNS, but that's a fantastic idea. I'll absolutely look into the other links you supplied. To be clear: I _will_ be kicking the tires on Proxmox for our friends trying to replace VMWare, but I wanted to be sure nobody was like, "Boy, that's a dumb idea because $REASON." The real question in my mind was, "Can I save having to do a full-on OpenStack deploy across multiple environments, etc., etc." And the answer to that appears to be "Maybe." I'll definitely play with it.

Much obliged!

Hey, you're welcome - the great free and paid support are excellent reasons too !

 

[ravenpi]

It could be, especially if is a vanilla esxi play. You would need to evaluate your usecase in its totality (distributed switches, storage technology, vrops, DRS, etc) PVE's scope is quite a subset of the entirety of the Vsphere stack.


You'd need to be more specific. in what context?

I guess the question is why? but accomplishing this is trivial for any linux admin (simple cron job would do.)

"Scheduling," in this case, really means "figuring out the best place to dynamically, on-request, put VMs based on various heuristics such as available RAM, vCPU, disk and BW." It doesn't have anything to do with stuff like cron jobs. (See, for example, the scheduler in OpenStack, or, for that matter, the Completely Fair Scheduler in the Linux kernel, which deals with processes being serviced.)

 

[alexskysilk]

"Scheduling," in this case, really means "figuring out the best place to dynamically, on-request, put VMs based on various heuristics such as available RAM, vCPU, disk

Ah understood. So as @bbgeek17 mentioned this functionality is not present in PVE (at least not yet.) HOWEVER since PVE sits atop of debian its possible to home cook solutions for this using the API; there are a number of projects and discussions on the forum on user's solutions- example: https://github.com/gyptazy/ProxLB (not an endorsement, not my project