Choosing
a virtualisation tool can be tricky, so we've put two of the most popular side
by side
Customers are faced with a host of considerations
when it comes to trying to decide on what virtualisation and containerisation
software to use, and the differences between vendors are not always clear.
In order to better inform buyers, we've decided to
take a look at two of the best-known software packages out there, Proxmox and
VMware vSphere, and break down what it is they do and how they may benefit your
business.
What is
VMware vSphere?
There are many different versions of VMware virtualisation
software, but VMware vSphere is arguably the most popular.
Formerly known as VMware Infrastructure, this flagship
product comprises two main parts: the hypervisor and the management platform.
ESXi is a Type 1 hypervisor (bare metal hypervisor which couples with the OS
kernel), and vCenter Server (formerly known as VirtualCenter) is used for
infrastructure management, providing a single pane of glass view across ESXi
hosts.
ESXi is installed directly on physical hardware in the same
way Windows or Linux operating systems do. This software allows you to create
multiple virtual machines running operating systems such as Windows, Linux,
Solaris, macOS, and others on a single piece of physical hardware.
This offers a virtualisation layer that abstracts the CPU,
storage, memory and networking resources of the physical host into multiple
virtual machines. It also has a Virtual Machine File System that provides users
with a high-performance cluster file system for the virtual machines.
ESXi can run on Intel processors (Xeon and above) and AMD
Opteron processors. While hosts with 32-bit processors are not supported (ESXi
includes a 64-bit VMkernel), both 32-bit and 64-bit guest operating systems are
supported. The hypervisor supports up to 4,096 virtual processors per host, 320
logical CPUs per host, 512 virtual machines per host and up 4 TB of RAM per
host. It can installed on a hard disk, USB device, or even an SD card.
VMware ESXi has free and paid-for version. The free version
is somewhat limited and cannot be managed by vCenter. The latest version of the
software is 6.7.0 U3, released on 20 August 2019.
VMware vCenter is the software that manages an entire VMware
virtualisation infrastructure, providing a single interface for the virtualised
data centre. It manages the assignment of virtual machines to the hosts and the
assignment of resources to those virtual machines within a given host based on
the policies that the system administrator sets. A single vCenter Server
instance can support a maximum of 1,000 hosts, 10,000 powered-on virtual
machines and 15,000 registered virtual machines.
It also enables the use of features such as vSphere
Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), vSphere High Availability (HA), vSphere
vMotion, and vSphere Storage vMotion. It also provides the API for vSphere and
manages ESXi.
It can be installed on a supported version of Windows or
used as a preconfigured Linux version known as vCenter Server Appliance.
vCenter Server also permits Host Profiles, allowing users to define rules for
specific ESXi hosts.
The latest version of vCenter is 6.7 Update 2.
What is
Proxmox?
Proxmox is a complete open source server virtualisation
management software. It was developed by Proxmox Server Solutions in Austria
under the Internet Foundation of Austria and is released under the GNU General
Public License.
It's a Debian-based Linux distribution with a modified
Ubuntu LTS kernel. It enables the deployment and management of virtual machines
and containers, such as KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) for virtual machines
and Linux Containers (LXC) for containers, an OS-level virtualisation tool that
has been included in Proxmox VE since version 4.0.
The software also includes a bare-metal installer, web-based
management interface and many command-line tools. There is also a REST API to
support third-party tools.
Admins can carry out all management tasks with the
integrated graphical user interface (GUI). This interface is based on the ExtJS
JavaScript framework and works with any modern browser.
Proxmox can be clustered across multiple server nodes for
high availability. When deployed, the resource manager called Proxmox VE HA
Manager monitors all virtual machines and containers on the whole cluster and
automatically gets into action if one of them fails.
There is also an integrated live/online migration feature,
this enables the movement of virtual machines from one Proxmox VE cluster node
to another without any downtime. The process can be initiated by administrators
with either scripts or the web interface.
The Proxmox Virtual Environment supports a maximum of 12TB
of RAM and 768 logical CPUs per host. It also supports Intel EMT64 or AMD64
with Intel VT/AMD-V CPU flag.
It also features a built-in firewall that is customisable
allowing configurations via GUI or CLI. Firewall rules can be set up for all
hosts inside a cluster or define rules for virtual machines and containers
only.
Comparing
the two
ESXi is a mostly closed off, proprietary product that has a
free version with limited features. Most enterprise features are not available
in the free version.
Proxmox is a free, open source product based on other free,
open source products (KVM, LXC, etc) with all features enabled.
vSphere has more features overall than Proxmox, although
Proxmox's features are more useful. Proxmox can automatically enable nodes to
use the same shared storage when the user adds them to a cluster. While ESXi
obliges the user to manually configure a node to use the shared storage from
its cluster.
While both technologies are used for cloud computing and
server consolidation, the typical usage profile of Proxmox is in virtualised
server isolation and software development. VMware vSphere is more likely to be
used for business-critical applications and infrastructure as a service (IaaS).
ESXi also uses proprietary technology to support
virtualisation (VT-x for Intel processors and AMD-V for AMD processors).
Compare this with the situation with Proxmos; its KVM uses generic x86
virtualisation technology.
Question NO # 7
Which three features can be configured during the initial creation of a cluster? (Choose three.)
A. Proactive HA
B. EVC
C. DRS
D. vSAN
Answer: B,C,D
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