What Is Proxmox?
Proxmox is open-source virtualization management software. It lets you run virtual machines and LXC containers on physical servers as well as entire compute clusters. With it, you can not only build a very large pool of compute resources but also manage all your virtual machines from a single place. The solution also integrates ready-made tools for configuring High Availability (HA), VPS servers, networking, GPU servers, and storage arrays (SDS)
Proxmox KVM supports many different operating systems, so you can run any virtual machine on your server — whether it’s Ubuntu, Windows, or an Android emulator.
The software provides easy access to virtualization through a graphical interface, which lets you manage, launch, and modify virtual machines. This makes it quick and easy to migrate virtual machines and copy them to another resource.
ZFS Integration
ZFS is natively integrated into Proxmox at the software level, and using it is very intuitive. Simply create a new ZFS resource in Proxmox and assign it to a virtual machine. Proxmox offers easy disk management, and with its intuitive Web GUI you can administer every virtual machine in your cluster.
ZFS also offers data deduplication, a technique that removes duplicate data. Deduplication reduces the volume of data stored on disk or in an array, ultimately saving space. Compression works alongside deduplication, significantly reducing the disk resources used by virtual machines — and, ultimately, the final cost of your infrastructure.
GPU in Proxmox
Proxmox VE lets you assign a GPU device to a virtual machine using a passthrough mechanism that passes the GPU directly to the VM. To do this, the server’s hardware configuration must support passthrough, and you also need to make sure the VM’s operating system supports PCIe device passthrough.
It’s worth noting that assigning a GPU device to a virtual machine can lead to performance issues, depending on the type of device and how it’s used. We recommend running performance tests before deploying a GPU cluster on Proxmox VE.
In summary, Proxmox VE makes it possible to run a GPU cluster, but this requires proper configuration and confirmation that the server’s hardware setup supports passing GPU devices through to virtual machines.
High Availability + Ceph = a High-Availability Cluster
The hypervisor also lets you build a High Availability cluster. An HA cluster in Proxmox is a configuration of at least three Proxmox VE servers running virtual machines. The servers that make up the HA cluster share compute power among themselves, ensuring that virtual machines keep running with no noticeable downtime.
In addition, to achieve full HA for a server cluster, a solution such as Ceph is used, which comes integrated by default. Ceph gives you stable, distributed, highly available disk storage that lets you share disk resources alongside compute power. This approach guarantees full high availability within a given data center location.
Support and Infrastructure
If you’re looking for support or dedicated server infrastructure for your Proxmox environment, be sure to get in touch with us. We have extensive experience with Proxmox environments. We’ll assess your company’s needs and put together an offer tailored to them. We currently maintain several thousand instances running on Proxmox, Ceph, and ZFS. Use our server infrastructure and get PLN 1000 toward setting up your environment.