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Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

forum.proxmox.com

31–40 of 118 posts

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#31
post #7

I really hope the crazy prize increase of vmware products will end the use of esxi and the rest of the vsphere suite, it is one of the worst applications and apis i have ever had the displeasure of working with!

I can't concur. VMware was the leader in virtualization technology for a long time, and honestly nothing is quite as simple to start with as ESXi if you've never used a type 1 hypervisor before. I'm not so familiar with the APIs, so perhaps you're correct in that sense.

> nothing is quite as simple to start with as ESXi if you've never used a type 1 hypervisor before

Not sure about where ESXi is at lately on that level, but latest proxmox is really, really simple to start with if you've never used an hypervisor. You boot on the usb drive, press yes a few times, open the ip:port they give you and then you can click "create vm", next next next here is the iso to boot from and that's it.

Any tech user who has some vague knowledge about virtual machine or even run virtualbox on his computer could do it, and the more advanced fonctions (from proper backups and snapshot to multi node replication and load balancing) are absurdly simple to figure out in the UI.

I can't talk about the performance or quality of one against the other, but in pure difficulty to approach proxmox is doing very very good.

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#32
post #8

I have been running proxmox at home for a few months now. It has been, to say the least, an adventure. And I have nothing but good things to say about Proxmox at this point. Its running not only my home related items (MQTT, Homeassitant), it also plays host to some of the projects I'm working on (postgres, go apps, etc...) rather than runing some sort of local dev. If you need to exit vmware, proxmox seems like a goo…

I think "adventure" is how I'd put it, too. Perhaps that which I found most surprising was the difference in defaults between the two. ESXi gave me what I considered pretty good defaults, where Proxmox were more conservative or generic (struggling to find the right word). For example, I was surprised that I had to pick an option for CPU type instead of it defaulting to host, which I would have expected. Saying that, I never checked on ESXi, but I never had reason to look in to performance disparities there.

Once I found the surface, I have really grown to like it, expanding my footprint to use their backup server, too. Proxmox makes you work for it, but is worth it.

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#33
post #7

I really hope the crazy prize increase of vmware products will end the use of esxi and the rest of the vsphere suite, it is one of the worst applications and apis i have ever had the displeasure of working with!

i would disagree with you there, especially because there is very little on the sdn front which matches NSX-T in terms of SDN capabilities, this is something in which vmware has been ahead, the only other people with the same capabilities seem to be hyperscalers.

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#34
post #33
post #7

I really hope the crazy prize increase of vmware products will end the use of esxi and the rest of the vsphere suite, it is one of the worst applications and apis i have ever had the displeasure of working with!

i would disagree with you there, especially because there is very little on the sdn front which matches NSX-T in terms of SDN capabilities, this is something in which vmware has been ahead, the only other people with the same capabilities seem to be hyperscalers.

Take a look at Proxmox SDN features: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pvesdn.html (some of it is still in beta, I think).

I think it comes pretty close - close enough for probably most but the very largest of users, who, I think, should probably have tried to become hyperscalers themselves, instead of betting the farm and all the land around it on VMware (by Broadcom).

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#35
post #7

I really hope the crazy prize increase of vmware products will end the use of esxi and the rest of the vsphere suite, it is one of the worst applications and apis i have ever had the displeasure of working with!

We went from $66 last year to $3600 this year. There won’t be another year.

[deleted]

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#36

I'm in game development, and I run ESXi for two reasons: * Unmodified macOS guest VMs can run under ESXi (if you're reading this on macOS, you have an Apple-made VMXNet3 network adapter driver on your system--see /System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleVmxnet3Ethernet.kext ) * Accelerated 3D has reasonable guest support, even as pure software. You wouldn't want to work in one of those…

The lack of 3D paravirtual devices is a real sore spot in kvm. To my knowledge, virgl still isn't quite there but is all there is so far in this space. VMware has the best implementation IMO and everything else is a step down.

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#37

I'm in game development, and I run ESXi for two reasons: * Unmodified macOS guest VMs can run under ESXi (if you're reading this on macOS, you have an Apple-made VMXNet3 network adapter driver on your system--see /System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleVmxnet3Ethernet.kext ) * Accelerated 3D has reasonable guest support, even as pure software. You wouldn't want to work in one of those…

The SPICE backend has decent OpenGL 3D support with software rendering, it's slow but it works for simple graphics. It's intended for 2D so the desktop's pretty fast IMO. That only works for Linux and Windows guests though, not Apple ones. MacOS VMs do work in Proxmox with a Hackintosh setup but you pretty much have to passthrough a GPU to the VM if you're using the GUI. Otherwise you're stuck with the Apple VNC remo…

For paravirtualized hardware rendering you can use virtio-gpu. In addition to Linux, a Windows guest driver is available but it's highly experimental still and not very easy to get working.

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#38
It's the ecosystem.

Sure, your organization is spending another million dollars on VMware this year, but what are the options?

* Your outsourced VMware-certified experts don't actually know that much about virtualization (somehow)

* Your backup software provider is just now researching adding Proxmox support (https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/veeam_proxmox_oracle_...)

* A few years ago you 'reduced storage cost and complexity' by moving to VMware vSAN, now you have a SAN purchase and data migration on your task list

* The hybrid cloud solution that was implemented isn't compatible with Proxmox

* The ServiceNow integration for VMware works great and is saving you tons of time and money. You want to give that up?

* Can you live without logging, reporting, and dashboards until your team gets some free time?

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#39

It's the ecosystem. Sure, your organization is spending another million dollars on VMware this year, but what are the options? * Your outsourced VMware-certified experts don't actually know that much about virtualization (somehow) * Your backup software provider is just now researching adding Proxmox support ( https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/22/veeam_proxmox_oracle_... ) * A few years ago you 'reduced storage cos…

With a million dollar per year to play with, you should ultimately be able to replace all of these. Especially since it's not like Proxmox is lacking its own third-party support options (but it being built on FLOSS tech still leaves you with a lot more flexibility).

Re: Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs

#40
I use Proxmox since 5 years at home. Mostly docker nested in unprivileged LXCs on ZFS for performance reasons. I love the reliability. Proxmox has never lost me. They churn out constant progress without making too much noise. No buzzwords, no advertising, just a good reliable product that keeps getting better.
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