Transcript
And I wanted to thank you for participating in today's webinar. I believe we all will have an informative and positive conversation on, I think, important topic, at least for last year. So it is called Life After VMware, Virtualization with Proxmox. Today's agenda will be next. So we will define challenges of the virtualization world, and we'll check what actually happened around the VMware. Then we'll see what are the alternatives on the market. And we'll talk about Proxmox, which is kind of our main topic here. And we'll also highlight how Starwind can use and improve Proxmox for providing HE for your production environments. And in the end, so I'll show you how Starwind actually on the Proxmox looks like, hopefully. And as always, Q&A session after that. So let's go then with the webinar. And first, I want to talk a bit about some challenges that you might experience when working or creating the production environments, production infrastructures, actually everything. Basically in the rapidly evolving landscape of some technologies and services, individuals and organizations are frequently faced with the daunting task of choosing the most suitable solutions to meet their unique needs. So these decision-making processes are often complex and multifaceted, involving careful consideration of various factors, such as cost, functionality, scalability, and also compatibility with existing systems, especially if we're talking about the server and virtualization world. And from my point of view, there are two major challenges out there. So the first one is selecting the right solution for you. So it requires deep understanding of one's current and future needs. So it involves evaluating the market, comparing different offerings, and considering the trade-offs between the benefits and limitations of each option, actually. And so the challenge lies not only in identifying a solution that addresses the immediate requirements, but also one that can adapt to changing the demands over time. And the second challenge is simply switching from existing solution to a new one for various reasons. So transitioning to a new solution can be driven by several factors, including the need for a good route, performance, access to better features, or more favorable pricing. So however, the switch often comes with its own set of challenges, such as data migration, user retaining potential, or temporary disruptions in services. And a successful transition requires careful planning, clear communication, well-thought-out implementation, and well-thought-out implementation strategy in general, just to minimize any negative impact on operations. But yeah, so enough of those broad statements. Let's get to the point why we are here. So the inverse acquisition by Broadcom. Well, typically one company acquires another. There are some changes to be performed by one who's the boss now. And the good changes or bad changes, only history will know. But so we're living here in present time, so let's see what kind of changes are already implemented and what actually appeared in the news feeds and forums, what actually happened in here. First of all, when we're talking about the inverse acquisition by Broadcom, there are some licensing model changes. So the shift from perpetual licensing as an option to a forced subscription-based only model. So a lot of customers, a lot of VMware customers were using long-term licensing and were not paying attention to expiration date because there was none. And the new subscription model is considerably more expensive, which could be unsustainable for many smaller companies. And also certain VMware offerings that small and medium businesses relied on are being discontinued, which means that these businesses will need to find an alternative solution or pay significantly more than they paid in the past. Also there is increased costs. So there have been instances where businesses were quoted prices that were literally more than 10 times higher than before. With the expiration of subscription licenses, businesses are facing increased costs without the option of dates or support from VMware leading to potential security risks. And there is also strategic focus shift. So Broadcom is pivoting its focus towards enterprise business. And instead of having dozens of different editions for different businesses for different purposes, they are now shifting to just a couple of licensing options, which are including most of the enterprise features. So small and medium business, which do not need these features, will need to simply pay for these features anyway. OK, but let's face the fact. So actually VMware is OK, so nothing happens at least for now with its functionalities, so it's OK. And they are OK for a reason. So they are leaders in the market. They provide a lot of great features and they are very stable. So it's proven to be a good solution over a decade. However, kind of talking into account current situation, it will obviously hit your wallet. And so you need to choose wisely. So there's nothing wrong to stay with VMware and pay more. But based on what we said before, a lot of people that are VMware customers for a long time, they are now at least looking for alternatives. And yes, obviously, there are going to be some limitations in other solutions. They may be not as robust as VMware. And there are a lot of things you need to pay attention to in your integrations with VMware. So, right, since we covered what was the VMware's drama is all about, we're getting close to the topic of today's webinar, the Proxmox. But before, let's talk a bit about other VMware alternatives on the market. So what we can use. So what can be considered as an alternative then? Microsoft Hyper-V. Yeah, that's an option. So the second player on the market, a lot of businesses implement Microsoft Hyper-V in production. However, historically speaking, many of VMware users don't trust in Microsoft products for various reasons, even if they can use Windows Server in their production environments, but they might not see Hyper-V as an alternative to VMware in general. However, it's worth to mention that Hyper-V is good for small and medium businesses, especially if you're already running some Windows Server virtual machines in your production environment. So switching to Hyper-V might be technically correct and cost effective solution for you. If you're not requiring a lot of extra features that VMware has, such as, for example, the full-tolerance functionality, et cetera. Just by the way, a little off-topic. So I see you guys asking me, can you have the copy of the webinar? Of course you can. So just this webinar will be recorded and it will be available in one, two weeks after this date. And all participants will have the link to this webinar on the email that was used for participating in the webinar. So answering all these questions, yes. So you will receive a copy of the meeting. Thanks. Right. Okay. So another option is XCPNG or XenServer. So that's pretty much the same. So that could be an option as well, especially taking into account XCPNG is an open service product and it is also free. So yeah, there are a lot of features missing in there. And in general, XCPNG is quite an old technology utilizing old Linux core, but there were also commercial offerings like Citrix XenServer. And I'd confirm that it's a viable alternative for small, let's say, two node or three node clusters. It is not bad at all. You just need to keep in mind that the supported documentation are pretty limited with XCPNG and XenServers. And the same I can say about the Red Hat KVM as one more alternative, or at least that was an alternative. So there used to be a very good option to pay attention to, which was called Red Hat RGB plus Ovid. Unfortunately, Red Hat ditched it in favor of open shared solutions and now Ovid is completely community driven. So it is not getting updates very often anymore and is dropped in terms of commits of this project. So if I were you, personally, I would not consider this as an option which needs viable attention because simply you can get commercial support for it. So there are some other enterprise Linux options such as Oracle. So some of you are also noticing that Nutanix can be an option. Nutanix one is a bit different question. So they are more aiming at enterprise markets. So they do require several nodes as a minimal configuration. And yeah, so something like that. But actually, let's focus on the Proxmox, the solution that I think is worth paying attention to as an alternative to VMware. Who is the Proxmox actually? So in general, Proxmox is an open source platform that simply provides a suite of tools for managing virtualized server environments. So it was released a long time ago in 2008 in Austria and simply matured throughout the years. And there is a Proxmox virtual environment, which is simply a server virtualization platform, a hypervisor that integrates simply KVM functionality and also Linux containers offering web-based interface for managing virtual machines, also container storage networking. And it was simply designed for enterprise virtualization and also allows for creation and management of virtual servers for some data centers providing high availability clustering with ease. And it also features native backup solution, which is Proxmox backup server. And also it is quite well known among whole labors featuring all-in-one architecture. Important thing is that Proxmox is really an enterprise-grade solution. So I personally recommend considering that for the production environments for the enterprise. Yeah, so that's how the things are going. For my personal opinion, it's pretty looking, especially for an open source product. Yeah, so there are some other good examples of a good user interface, but this one is not only good but useful. But if you're, for example, if you're a VMware customer, of course, you will experience some kind of jet lag switching to it. So this is what you can expect. So it obviously is not as developed as VMware. And obviously you can just compare the size of the VMware and Proxmox team. But if you will get with it, with the Proxmox, I'm sure you will find it pretty useful when not made at all internal. Yeah, something like that. In terms of the support of the solution, I see one of the questions, how do we consider Proxmox an enterprise-grade solution when support is only provided by Proxmox during Austrian business hours? So one of the options will be here is having MSP assigned to supporting this solution. So definitely, if you're, for example, in a different time zone, you can use one of your local MSPs that are able to support the Proxmox hypervisor. And that will be the better option. And looking forward also, Starwind, where we're talking about Starwind hardware products, we will also be able to support and at least advise on any Proxmox issues or something like that when you're simply purchasing Proxmox solution with Starwind hardware as well. So yeah, these are the options.
