Exploring Proxmox from a VMware User’s Perspective

One thing I noticed in your XCP-ng comparison was the mention of the limitation of VM pausing during snapshot creation if memory is included in the snapshot. However I don't remember hearing about Proxmox snapshots in this video. Does it have the same VM pausing issue as XCP-ng for memory-inclusive snapshots? It looks like the snapshot capability is dependent on a number of factors such as the virtual disk format or the file system used to hold VM images (so you need to use QCow virtual disk files if your VM storage is networked using NFS or Samba), and that would have been good to mention.

LXC is a beauty. A changing world is a bitch, maybe start working at Seven-Eleven instead. No need to learn Linux there.

Looks like a lot of IT Admins have to learn Linux. Why do they not already know it? Bad career planning. Complacency is a killer.

Nice roundup and generally a good video. However, some suggestions: I generally dismiss the approach, that "forcing admins to use the Linux commandline" is a bad idea. I consider it a necessity. First of all, you do not use Proxmox to run Windows-VMs only – you would use hyperV&friends for that. So most, if not all, Proxmox-installations will be used running Linux-based VMs. And you need some Linux commandline knowledge, if you run Linux VMs. Having both, your guest VMs and your virtualization environment being administered using the same basic method – Linux commandline – is actually a good thing.
Being able to administer Linux from the commandline to some extend should be considered a basic capability. If you are a professional in the field, obtaining such knowledge is far less daunting, than learning to administer a UNIX box back in the days. Simply because we have the Internet today. All of us Linux admins today are "Google-Admins" to a large extend – you paste the error message in the search box of your browser and follow whatever the (stackexchange-)searchresult indicates. And that is a good thing. Learning the basics is done in a week or two and if you use the "Google-Admin-approach", your knowledge grows as you plot along. But that way, you grow what basically can be cosidered a "universal capability of administrating Linux". And at that point, all solutions based on Linux, such as Proxmox, become accessible to you.
Don't be shy of the commandline, embrace it.

I believe the reason Proxmox has the VMware features, the pvscsi, vmxnet3, etc is because if installed Vmware Player on a Linux host, it has to compile kernel modules. So they may have the modules precompiled and ready, not to mention there is Open-VM-Tools, which is an open source version of VMware Guest Additions for Linux. When the Open VM Tools became standard, VMware pretty much dropped support for their own proprietary guest additions for linux, especially for newer kernels. Maybe having these for guests is for compatibility should you wish to migrate from ESXi or any other VMware product.

Does Proxmox have the stringent CPU requirements as ESXI does?

Super well done video.

8:06. No, that is not true. In fact, almost everything the host does via web gui can be done via the console. The only thing that IS correct is that there is no console menu, so if you don't know what you're doing, it's easier to start with the gui.

Should have really talked more about the ability to GPU and other pass through capabilities as well without paying an arm an a leg for Nvidia licensing. It's really nice for Plex or Jellyfin transcoding and running cheaper LLM/AI solutions. Also the Proxmox backup solution is truly amazing and probably needs to be talked about more. It doesn't just give you VM backups but it also does file backups as well. For me this was such a better and easier solution than going with Commvault or Veeam.

Proxmox here I come…
But indeed, how easily migrate a ESX VM…

Sooo, re: containers not being useful except for shaving ever so slightly more resources off of a virtualized system.

Basically everything you said was where I was at ~10 years ago with containers. I thought their benefits didn't outweigh the burden of being tied to the host's kernel. But all of that was based on a misunderstanding of what problems containers solve, and I think you're in basically the same spot, but on a slightly different subject.

For me it was containers in general. For you, it's LXC containers versus "application containers" like Docker. Put simply, there is effectively no difference in container tech between Docker and LXC. Docker gives you an API to work with, and it is expected that you're building your containerized applications in Docker fashion so that they can be spun up on any host running docker.

Essentially the same with LXC. I don't know that LXC offers a REST API to query, but that's where Proxmox's API comes into play. But as far as containerized applications? LXC and Docker are effectively one and the same.

In Proxmox, hit up one of your storage locations that is configured for holding container templates, and download one of the Turnkey containers. Hopefully that will help things click for you. No shade being thrown here. Like I said, I was very much foot-in-mouth about containers, myself.

Hi there, i have migrated easy from Vmware to proxmox using clonezilla, a great tool by the way, made for GNU/Linux, but work for Micro$of too!, lately i have a mirror problem with my zfs, i swapped the disk, make a zpoll ofline and replace the disk, the make zpoll replace (old drive-id) (new drive-id), and that solve the problem, agree with the subscription banner thing, easy to disable whith one command line, so no brainer cost effective vs vmware systems, even having a paid sub. Great software and hopes it grows in the near future because i am using it in all my projects now. cheers!

thank you for this video, very well put.

I practiced proxmox back in the days and recently got in touch with VMware (from far)

agree
– messy interface : 2-3 years ago configuring laggs and bridges required to edit the network configuration, that was ridiculous, but it's fixed now et they added more network features recently
– They still do a major mistake at install time : it picks up an ip address from the dhcp and configures it as a fixed IP for proxmox (pure network heresy)
– lack of kubernetes, docker direct management

disagree :
– lxc containers : mandatory on micro infrastructures / edge computing where every mb counts, used it extensively
– I'm now in an organization that has the basic ¨m$ spirit" as I call it : as soon as there is a difficulty, reboot or call the supplier not even looking at some basic OS metrics sometimes. I definitively prefer the linux nerds and "find solution by yourself" mindset.
– Everything can be done on console is a great feature and proxmox has it's own CLI on top of the OS possibilities Tlinux
– upgrading was easy to me on proxmox

Pros for proxmox

all zfs goodness :
– instant snapshot creation without killing i/o performance and instant deletion also (no waiting for hours on commiting changes) whatever the size of the vm
– self healing, encryption, compression..etc…
— zfs send and receive

– no Vcenter special vm that you have to maintain
– no need to change the vm vhardware version when upgrading the VM OS
– no collusion between proxmox and the hardware vendor that forces you to have a hardware support contract

Pros for VMware
– no need to understand virtIO drivers / spice client
– netdata should be included in proxmox by default

For a Homelab i like having lxc. Easy to spin up a quick and dirty OS for testing something. I have started using more Ubuntu minimal cloud VMs which use very little resources as well.

The ignorance @8:15 … on the Proxmox console command line you can do everything you can do on the gui and a million more things; it is just a debian host with the PVE on top

8:05 "all management needs to be done via web gui"
completely incorrect. Proxmox makes virtually everything and more available via the command line. "pct" program and "pve" prefixed commands, tons of them. You can enter hosts via the "pct enter hostID" etc
in /etc/pve/ all machines are available for config edit as well