Proxmox further develops towards an alternative to VMware with the beta version of its Datacenter Manager. It allows management of large clusters.
As an open-source virtualization suite, Proxmox is on paper a prime alternative to VMware. In practice, pure technical capabilities are not enough to make waves in a business context. For instance, Proxmox lacks support for easy management of large environments. With the beta launch of Datacenter Manager (PDM), the virtualization specialist takes a big step towards solving that problem.
What Does the Proxmox Datacenter Manager Do?
The Datacenter Manager provides a centralized overview of all nodes and clusters. Administrators can connect multiple environments to it, giving them visibility into virtual machines, containers, storage, and network resources from a single web interface.
Basic management is also possible from the Datacenter Manager. This includes migrating virtual machines without complex cluster configurations. For more advanced actions, Proxmox allows immediate click-through to the existing web interface of a remote node.
Additionally, PDM supports modern network integration, such as SDN and EVPN, allowing users to manage and control zones and virtual networks across different locations. The system provides status overviews, allows searching and filtering of resources with a flexible syntax, and ensures secure connections with remotes via API tokens and TLS certificates.
The Datacenter Manager is thus intended to become a user-friendly, central cockpit for monitoring and managing distributed Proxmox infrastructure, with additional capabilities for network management and scalability.
Alternative to Broadcom
The functionality is important for companies with a substantial VM infrastructure that don’t fall under Broadcom’s definition of ‘large enterprise’. Broadcom targets its services almost exclusively at the very largest organizations, suddenly confronting (relatively) smaller VMware customers with artificial product bundling and higher license costs.
Migrating to another solution is not always easy. Nutanix positions itself as a mature alternative, and Microsoft also wants to get a piece of the pie with Hyper-V. Meanwhile, Proxmox is also growing into a relevant alternative in various scenarios. When PDM graduates from beta to full release later this year, Proxmox suddenly becomes much more suitable for enterprises that need to manage large VM environments.