Proxmox VE is an open-source server management platform for your enterprise virtualization. It tightly integrates KVM hypervisor and LXC, software-defined storage, and networking functionality on a single platform. With the integrated web-based user interface you can easily manage VMs and containers, highly available clusters, or the integrated disaster recovery tools with ease.
Enterprise-class features and a 100% software-based focus make Proxmox VE the perfect choice to virtualize your IT infrastructure, optimize existing resources and increase efficiencies with minimal expense. You can easily virtualize even the most demanding Linux and Windows application workloads, and dynamically scale computing and storage as your needs grow ensuring that your data center adjusts for future growth.
Ready to build an open and future-proof data center with Proxmox VE?
Two Solutions In One
By combining two virtualization technologies under one platform, Proxmox VE is giving maximum flexibility to your production environment. Use KVM full virtualization for Windows and Linux images, and lightweight containers to run conflict-free Linux applications.
Proxmox VE is a powerful open-source server virtualization platform to manage two virtualization technologies – KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) for virtual machines and LXC for containers – with a single web-based interface. It also integrates out-of-the-box-tools for configuring high availability between servers, software-defined storage, networking, and disaster recovery.
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
KVM is the industry-leading Linux virtualization technology for full-virtualization. It’s a kernel module merged into the mainline Linux kernel and it runs with near native performance on all x86 hardware with virtualization support—either Intel VT-x or AMD-V.
With KVM you can run both, Windows and Linux, in virtual machines (VMs) where each VM has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc. Running several applications in VMs on a single hardware, enables you to save power and reduce cost while at the same time gives you the flexibility to build an agile and scalable software-defined data center that meets your business demands.
Proxmox VE includes KVM support since the beginning of the project back in 2008 (that is since version 0.9beta2).
Container-based Virtualization
Container-based virtualization technology is a lightweight alternative to full machine virtualization because it offers lower overhead.
LXC is an operating-system-level-virtualization environment for running multiple, isolated Linux systems on a single Linux control host. LXC works as an userspace interface for the Linux kernel containment features. Users can easily create and manage system or application containers with a powerful API and simple tools.
What Does This Bring To Small Businesses?
Local businesses here in Port Charlotte, North Port, Punta Gorda and surrounding areas can benefit greatly from virtualization and containerization. Simplify IT infrastructure, security and maintenance. One server can do the job of several in the cloud or on-premise.
Install virtual appliances to supply services.
A virtual appliance is a pre-configured virtual machine image, ready to run on a hypervisor; virtual appliances are a subset of the broader class of software appliances. Installation of a software appliance on a virtual machine and packaging that into an image creates a virtual appliance. Like software appliances, virtual appliances are intended to eliminate the installation, configuration and maintenance costs associated with running complex stacks of software.
A virtual appliance is not a complete virtual machine platform, but rather a software image containing a software stack designed to run on a virtual machine platform which may be a Type 1 or Type 2 hypervisor. Like a physical computer, a hypervisor is merely a platform for running an operating system environment and does not provide application software itself. Many virtual appliances provide a Web page user interface to permit their configuration. A virtual appliance is usually built to host a single application; it therefore represents a new way to deploy applications on a network.
Fast Deployment Options
Turnkey GNU/Linux is a free Debian based library of system images that pre-integrates and polishes the best free software components into secure, easy to use solutions.
TurnKey is inspired by a belief in the democratizing power of free software, like science, to promote the progress of a free & humane society. Without the freedom to freely distribute, tinker and learn from free software the Internet as we know it would not exist. Free software is the silent, often invisible power behind the greatest technological marvel of our era.
- 100+ ready-to-use solutions: discover and leverage the best free software. Deploy solutions quickly on bare metal, virtual machines, or in the cloud.
- Free as in speech: free software with full source code and a powerful build system. Free of hidden backdoors, free from restrictive licensing and free to learn from, modify and distribute.
- Secure and easy to maintain: auto-updated daily with latest security patches.
- 1-click backup and restore: smart backup software saves changes to files, databases and package management to encrypted storage which servers can be automatically restored from.
- It just works: designed for ease of use, built and tested collaboratively by the community.
Central Management
While many people start with a single node, Proxmox VE can scale out to a large set of clustered nodes. The cluster stack is fully integrated and ships with the default installation. To manage all tasks of your virtual data center, you can use the central web-based management interface.
Web-based management interface
Proxmox VE is easy to use. You can do all management tasks with the integrated graphical user interface (GUI), there is no need to install a separate management tool. The central web interface is based on the ExtJS JavaScript framework and you can use it with any modern browser. It helps you to control all functionalities from the UI and to overview the history or the syslogs of each single node. This includes running backup tasks, live migration, software-defined storage, or HA triggered activities. The multi-master tool allows you to manage your whole cluster from any node of your cluster; you don’t need a dedicated manager node.
Unique multi-master design
The integrated web-based management interface gives you a clean overview of all your KVM guests and Linux containers and even of your whole cluster. You can easily manage your VMs and containers, storage or cluster from the GUI. There is no need to install a separate, complex, and pricy management server.
Flexible Software-Defined Storage
The Proxmox VE storage model is very flexible. Virtual machine images can either be stored on one or several local storages or on shared storage like NFS and SAN.
There are no limits, you may configure as many storage definitions as you like. You can use all storage technologies available for Debian GNU/Linux.
The benefit of storing VMs on shared storage is the ability to live-migrate running machines without any downtime.
You can add the following storage types in the Proxmox VE web interface:
Network storage types supported
- LVM Group (network backing with iSCSI targets)
- iSCSI target
- NFS Share
- CIFS
- Ceph RBD
- Direct to iSCSI LUN
- GlusterFS
- CephFS
Local storage types supported
- LVM Group
- Directory (storage on existing filesystem)
- ZFS
Backup and Restore
Backups are a basic requirement for any sensible IT environment. The Proxmox VE platform provides a fully integrated solution, using the capabilities of each storage and each guest system type.
The Proxmox VE backups are always full backups – containing the configuration of VMs and container, and all data. Backups can be easily started with the GUI or with the vzdump backup tool (via command line).
The integrated backup tool (vzdump) creates consistent snapshots of running containers and KVM guests. It basically creates an archive of the VM or container data and also includes the configuration files.
Scheduled Backup
Backup jobs can be scheduled so that they are executed automatically on specific days and times, for selectable nodes and guest systems.
Backup Storage
KVM live backup works for all storage types including VM images on NFS, iSCSI LUN, Ceph RBD or Sheepdog. The Proxmox VE backup format is optimized for storing VM backups fast and effectively (sparse files, out of order data, minimized I/O).
